WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST TEMPTS ELNORA, AND BILLY BURIES HIS FATHER
Immediately after dinner on Sunday Wesley Sinton stopped at the
Comstock gate to ask if Elnora wanted to go to town with them. Billy
sat beside him and he did not appear as if he were on his way to a
funeral. Elnora said she had to study and could not go, but she
suggested that her mother take her place. Mrs. Comstock put on her hat
and went at once, which surprised Elnora. She did not know that her
mother was anxious for an opportunity to speak with Sinton alone.
Elnora knew why she was repeatedly cautioned not to leave their land,
if she went specimen hunting.
She studied two hours and was several lessons ahead of her classes.
There was no use to go further. She would take a walk and see if she
could gather any caterpillars or find any freshly spun cocoons. She
searched the bushes and low trees behind the garden and all around the
edge of the woods on their land, and having little success, at last
came to the road. Almost the first thorn bush she examined yielded a
Polyphemus cocoon. Elnora lifted her head with the instinct of a hunter
on the chase, and began work. She reached the swamp before she knew it,
carrying five fine cocoons of different species as her reward. She
pushed back her hair and gazed around longingly. A few rods inside she
thought she saw cocoons on a bush, to which she went, and found
several. Sense of caution was rapidly vanishing; she was in a fair way
to forget everything and plunge into the swamp when she thought she
heard footsteps coming down the trail. She went back, and came out
almost facing Pete Corson.
That ended her difficulty. She had known him since childhood. When she
sat on the front bench of the Brushwood schoolhouse, Pete had been one
of the big boys at the back of the room. He had been rough and wild,
but she never had been afraid of him, and often he had given her pretty
things from the swamp.
“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.”