WHEREIN MARGARET SINTON REVEALS A SECRET, AND MRS. COMSTOCK POSSESSES
THE LIMBERLOST
“Elnora, bring me the towel, quick!” cried Mrs Comstock.
“In a minute, mother,” mumbled Elnora.
She was standing before the kitchen mirror, tying the back part of her
hair, while the front turned over her face.
“Hurry! There’s a varmint of some kind!”
Elnora ran into the sitting-room and thrust the heavy kitchen towel
into her mother’s hand. Mrs. Comstock swung open the screen door and
struck at some object, Elnora tossed the hair from her face so that she
could see past her mother. The girl screamed wildly.
“Don’t! Mother, don’t!”
Mrs. Comstock struck again. Elnora caught her arm. “It’s the one I
want! It’s worth a lot of money! Don’t! Oh, you shall not!”
“Shan’t, missy?” blazed Mrs. Comstock. “When did you get to bossing
me?”
The hand that held the screen swept a half-circle and stopped at
Elnora’s cheek. She staggered with the blow, and across her face, paled
with excitement, a red mark arose rapidly. The screen slammed shut,
throwing the creature on the floor before them. Instantly Mrs. Comstock
crushed it with her foot. Elnora stepped back. Excepting the red mark,
her face was very white.
“That was the last moth I needed,” she said, “to complete a collection
worth three hundred dollars. You’ve ruined it before my eyes!”
“Moth!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You say that because you are mad. Moths
have big wings. I know a moth!”
“I’ve kept things from you,” said Elnora, “because I didn’t dare
confide in you. You had no sympathy with me. But you know I never told
you untruths in all my life.”
“It’s no moth!” reiterated Mrs. Comstock.
“It is!” cried Elnora. “It’s from a case in the ground. Its wings take
two or three hours to expand and harden.”
“If I had known it was a moth——” Mrs. Comstock wavered.
“You did know! I told you! I begged you to stop! It meant just three
hundred dollars to me.”
“Bah! Three hundred fiddlesticks!”
“They are what have paid for books, tuition, and clothes for the past
four years. They are what I could have started on to college. You’ve
ruined the very one I needed. You never made any pretence of loving me.
At last I’ll be equally frank with you. I hate you! You are a selfish,
wicked woman! I hate you!”
Elnora turned, went through the kitchen and from the back door. She
followed the garden path to the gate and walked toward the swamp a
short distance when reaction overtook her. She dropped on the ground
and leaned against a big log. When a little child, desperate as now,
she had tried to die by holding her breath. She had thought in that way
to make her mother sorry, but she had learned that life was a thing
thrust upon her and she could not leave it at her wish.
She was so stunned over the loss of that moth, which she had childishly
named the Yellow Emperor, that she scarcely remembered the blow. She
had thought no luck in all the world would be so rare as to complete
her collection; now she had been forced to see a splendid Imperialis
destroyed before her. There was a possibility that she could find
another, but she was facing the certainty that the one she might have
had and with which she undoubtedly could have attracted others, was
spoiled by her mother. How long she sat there Elnora did not know or
care. She simply suffered in dumb, abject misery, an occasional dry sob
shaking her. Aunt Margaret was right. Elnora felt that morning that her
mother never would be any different. The girl had reached the place
where she realized that she could endure it no longer.
As Elnora left the room, Mrs. Comstock took one step after her.
“You little huzzy!” she gasped.
But Elnora was gone. Her mother stood staring.
“She never did lie to me,” she muttered. “I guess it was a moth. And
the only one she needed to get three hundred dollars, she said. I wish
I hadn’t been so fast! I never saw anything like it. I thought it was
some deadly, stinging, biting thing. A body does have to be mighty
careful here. But likely I’ve spilt the milk now. Pshaw! She can find
another! There’s no use to be foolish. Maybe moths are like snakes,
where there’s one, there are two.”
Mrs. Comstock took the broom and swept the moth out of the door. Then
she got down on her knees and carefully examined the steps, logs and
the earth of the flower beds at each side. She found the place where
the creature had emerged from the ground, and the hard, dark-brown case
which had enclosed it, still wet inside. Then she knew Elnora had been
right. It was a moth. Its wings had been damp and not expanded. Mrs.
Comstock never before had seen one in that state, and she did not know
how they originated. She had thought all of them came from cases spun
on trees or against walls or boards. She had seen only enough to know
that there were such things; as a flash of white told her that an
ermine was on her premises, or a sharp “buzzzzz” warned her of a
rattler.
So it was from creatures like that Elnora had secured her school money.
In one sickening sweep there rushed into the heart of the woman a full
realization of the width of the gulf that separated her from her child.
Lately many things had pointed toward it, none more plainly than when
Elnora, like a reincarnation of her father, had stood fearlessly before
a large city audience and played with even greater skill than he, on
what Mrs. Comstock felt very certain was his violin. But that little
crawling creature of earth, crushed by her before its splendid yellow
and lavender wings could spread and carry it into the mystery of night,
had performed a miracle.
“We are nearer strangers to each other than we are with any of the
neighbours,” she muttered.
So one of the Almighty’s most delicate and beautiful creations was
sacrificed without fulfilling the law, yet none of its species ever
served so glorious a cause, for at last Mrs. Comstock’s inner vision
had cleared. She went through the cabin mechanically. Every few minutes
she glanced toward the back walk to see if Elnora were coming. She knew
arrangements had been made with Margaret to go to the city some time
that day, so she grew more nervous and uneasy every moment. She was
haunted by the fear that the blow might discolour Elnora’s cheek; that
she would tell Margaret. She went down the back walk, looking intently
in all directions, left the garden and followed the swamp path. Her
step was noiseless on the soft, black earth, and soon she came close
enough to see Elnora. Mrs. Comstock stood looking at the girl in
troubled uncertainty. Not knowing what to say, at last she turned and
went back to the cabin.
Noon came and she prepared dinner, calling, as she always did, when
Elnora was in the garden, but she got no response, and the girl did not
come. A little after one o’clock Margaret stopped at the gate.
“Elnora has changed her mind. She is not going,” called Mrs. Comstock.
She felt that she hated Margaret as she hitched her horse and came up
the walk instead of driving on.
“You must be mistaken,” said Margaret. “I was going on purpose for her.
She asked me to take her. I had no errand. Where is she?”
“I will call her,” said Mrs. Comstock.
She followed the path again, and this time found Elnora sitting on the
log. Her face was swollen and discoloured, and her eyes red with
crying. She paid no attention to her mother.
“Mag Sinton is here,” said Mrs. Comstock harshly. “I told her you had
changed your mind, but she said you asked her to go with you, and she
had nothing to go for herself.”
Elnora arose, recklessly waded through the deep swamp grasses and so
reached the path ahead of her mother. Mrs. Comstock followed as far as
the garden, but she could not enter the cabin. She busied herself among
the vegetables, barely looking up when the back-door screen slammed
noisily. Margaret Sinton approached colourless, her eyes so angry that
Mrs. Comstock shrank back.
“What’s the matter with Elnora’s face?” demanded Margaret.
Mrs. Comstock made no reply.
“You struck her, did you?”
“I thought you wasn’t blind!”
“I have been, for twenty long years now, Kate Comstock,” said Margaret
Sinton, “but my eyes are open at last. What I see is that I’ve done you
no good and Elnora a big wrong. I had an idea that it would kill you to
know, but I guess you are tough enough to stand anything. Kill or cure,
you get it now!”
“What are you frothing about?” coolly asked Mrs. Comstock.
“You!” cried Margaret. “You! The woman who doesn’t pretend to love her
only child. Who lets her grow to a woman, as you have let Elnora, and
can’t be satisfied with every sort of neglect, but must add abuse yet;
and all for a fool idea about a man who wasn’t worth his salt!”
Mrs. Comstock picked up a hoe.
“Go right on!” she said. “Empty yourself. It’s the last thing you’ll
ever do!”
“Then I’ll make a tidy job of it,” said Margaret. “You’ll not touch me.
You’ll stand there and hear the truth at last, and because I dare face
you and tell it, you will know in your soul it is truth. When Robert
Comstock shaved that quagmire out there so close he went in, he wanted
to keep you from knowing where he was coming from. He’d been to see
Elvira Carney. They had plans to go to a dance that night——”
“Close your lips!” said Mrs. Comstock in a voice of deadly quiet.
“You know I wouldn’t dare open them if I wasn’t telling you the truth.
I can prove what I say. I was coming from Reeds. It was hot in the
woods and I stopped at Carney’s as I passed for a drink. Elvira’s
bedridden old mother heard me, and she was so crazy for some one to
talk with, I stepped in a minute. I saw Robert come down the path.
Elvira saw him, too, so she ran out of the house to head him off. It
looked funny, and I just deliberately moved where I could see and hear.
He brought her his violin, and told her to get ready and meet him in
the woods with it that night, and they would go to a dance. She took it
and hid it in the loft to the well-house and promised she’d go.”
“Are you done?” demanded Mrs. Comstock.
“No. I am going to tell you the whole story. You don’t spare Elnora
anything. I shan’t spare you. I hadn’t been here that day, but I can
tell you just how he was dressed, which way he went and every word they
said, though they thought I was busy with her mother and wouldn’t
notice them. Put down your hoe, Kate. I went to Elvira, told her what I
knew and made her give me Comstock’s violin for Elnora over three years
ago. She’s been playing it ever since. I won’t see her slighted and
abused another day on account of a man who would have broken your heart
if he had lived. Six months more would have showed you what everybody
else knew. He was one of those men who couldn’t trust himself, and so
no woman was safe with him. Now, will you drop grieving over him, and
do Elnora justice?”
Mrs. Comstock grasped the hoe tighter and turning she went down the
walk, and started across the woods to the home of Elvira Carney. With
averted head she passed the pool, steadily pursuing her way. Elvira
Carney, hanging towels across the back fence, saw her coming and went
toward the gate to meet her. Twenty years she had dreaded that visit.
Since Margaret Sinton had compelled her to produce the violin she had
hidden so long, because she was afraid to destroy it, she had come
closer expectation than dread. The wages of sin are the hardest debts
on earth to pay, and they are always collected at inconvenient times
and unexpected places. Mrs. Comstock’s face and hair were so white,
that her dark eyes seemed burned into their setting. Silently she
stared at the woman before her a long time.
“I might have saved myself the trouble of coming,” she said at last, “I
see you are guilty as sin!”
“What has Mag Sinton been telling you?” panted the miserable woman,
gripping the fence.
“The truth!” answered Mrs. Comstock succinctly. “Guilt is in every line
of your face, in your eyes, all over your wretched body. If I’d taken a
good look at you any time in all these past years, no doubt I could
have seen it just as plain as I can now. No woman or man can do what
you’ve done, and not get a mark set on them for every one to read.”
“Mercy!” gasped weak little Elvira Carney. “Have mercy!”
“Mercy?” scoffed Mrs. Comstock. “Mercy! That’s a nice word from you!
How much mercy did you have on me? Where’s the mercy that sent Comstock
to the slime of the bottomless quagmire, and left me to see it, and
then struggle on in agony all these years? How about the mercy of
letting me neglect my baby all the days of her life? Mercy! Do you
really dare use the word to me?”
“If you knew what I’ve suffered!”
“Suffered?” jeered Mrs. Comstock. “That’s interesting. And pray, what
have you suffered?”
“All the neighbours have suspected and been down on me. I ain’t had a
friend. I’ve always felt guilty of his death! I’ve seen him go down a
thousand times, plain as ever you did. Many’s the night I’ve stood on
the other bank of that pool and listened to you, and I tried to throw
myself in to keep from hearing you, but I didn’t dare. I knew God would
send me to burn forever, but I’d better done it; for now, He has set
the burning on my body, and every hour it is slowly eating the life out
of me. The doctor says it’s a cancer——”
Mrs. Comstock exhaled a long breath. Her grip on the hoe relaxed and
her stature lifted to towering height.
“I didn’t know, or care, when I came here, just what I did,” she said.
“But my way is beginning to clear. If the guilt of your soul has come
to a head, in a cancer on your body, it looks as if the Almighty didn’t
need any of my help in meting out His punishments. I really couldn’t
fix up anything to come anywhere near that. If you are going to burn
until your life goes out with that sort of fire, you don’t owe me
anything!”
“Oh, Katharine Comstock!” groaned Elvira Carney, clinging to the fence
for support.
“Looks as if the Bible is right when it says, ‘The wages of sin is
death,’ doesn’t it?” asked Mrs. Comstock. “Instead of doing a woman’s
work in life, you chose the smile of invitation, and the dress of
unearned cloth. Now you tell me you are marked to burn to death with
the unquenchable fire. And him! It was shorter with him, but let me
tell you he got his share! He left me with an untruth on his lips, for
he told me he was going to take his violin to Onabasha for a new key,
when he carried it to you. Every vow of love and constancy he ever made
me was a lie, after he touched your lips, so when he tried the wrong
side of the quagmire, to hide from me the direction in which he was
coming, it reached out for him, and it got him. It didn’t hurry,
either! It sucked him down, slow and deliberate.”
“Mercy!” groaned Elvira Carney. “Mercy!”
“I don’t know the word,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You took all that out of
me long ago. The past twenty years haven’t been of the sort that taught
mercy. I’ve never had any on myself and none on my child. Why in the
name of justice, should I have mercy on you, or on him? You were both
older than I, both strong, sane people, you deliberately chose your
course when you lured him, and he, when he was unfaithful to me. When a
Loose Man and a Light Woman face the end the Almighty ordained for
them, why should they shout at me for mercy? What did I have to do with
it?”
Elvira Carney sobbed in panting gasps.
“You’ve got tears, have you?” marvelled Mrs. Comstock. “Mine all dried
long ago. I’ve none left to shed over my wasted life, my disfigured
face and hair, my years of struggle with a man’s work, my wreck of land
among the tilled fields of my neighbours, or the final knowledge that
the man I so gladly would have died to save, wasn’t worth the sacrifice
of a rattlesnake. If anything yet could wring a tear from me, it would
be the thought of the awful injustice I always have done my girl. If
I’d lay hand on you for anything, it would be for that.”
“Kill me if you want to,” sobbed Elvira Carney. “I know that I deserve
it, and I don’t care.”
“You are getting your killing fast enough to suit me,” said Mrs.
Comstock. “I wouldn’t touch you, any more than I would him, if I could.
Once is all any man or woman deceives me about the holiest things of
life. I wouldn’t touch you any more than I would the black plague. I am
going back to my girl.”
Mrs. Comstock turned and started swiftly through the woods, but she had
gone only a few rods when she stopped, and leaning on the hoe, she
stood thinking deeply. Then she turned back. Elvira still clung to the
fence, sobbing bitterly.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Comstock, “but I left a wrong impression with
you. I don’t want you to think that I believe the Almighty set a cancer
to burning you as a punishment for your sins. I don’t! I think a lot
more of the Almighty. With a whole sky-full of worlds on His hands to
manage, I’m not believing that He has time to look down on ours, and
pick you out of all the millions of us sinners, and set a special kind
of torture to eating you. It wouldn’t be a gentlemanly thing to do, and
first of all, the Almighty is bound to be a gentleman. I think likely a
bruise and bad blood is what caused your trouble. Anyway, I’ve got to
tell you that the cleanest housekeeper I ever knew, and one of the
noblest Christian women, was slowly eaten up by a cancer. She got hers
from the careless work of a poor doctor. The Almighty is to forgive sin
and heal disease, not to invent and spread it.”
She had gone only a few steps when she again turned back.
“If you will gather a lot of red clover bloom, make a tea strong as lye
of it, and drink quarts, I think likely it will help you, if you are
not too far gone. Anyway, it will cool your blood and make the burning
easier to bear.”
Then she swiftly went home. Enter the lonely cabin she could not,
neither could she sit outside and think. She attacked a bed of beets
and hoed until the perspiration ran from her face and body, then she
began on the potatoes. When she was too tired to take another stroke
she bathed and put on dry clothing. In securing her dress she noticed
her husband’s carefully preserved clothing lining one wall. She
gathered it in an armload and carried it to the swamp. Piece by piece
she pitched into the green maw of the quagmire all those articles she
had dusted carefully and fought moths from for years, and stood
watching as it slowly sucked them down. She went back to her room and
gathered every scrap that had in any way belonged to Robert Comstock,
excepting his gun and revolver, and threw it into the swamp. Then for
the first time she set her door wide open.
She was too weary now to do more, but an urging unrest drove her. She
wanted Elnora. It seemed to her she never could wait until the girl
came and delivered her judgment. At last in an effort to get nearer to
her, Mrs. Comstock climbed the stairs and stood looking around Elnora’s
room. It was very unfamiliar. The pictures were strange to her.
Commencement had filled it with packages and bundles. The walls were
covered with cocoons; moths and dragonflies were pinned everywhere.
Under the bed she could see half a dozen large white boxes. She pulled
out one and lifted the lid. The bottom was covered with a sheet of thin
cork, and on long pins sticking in it were large, velvet-winged moths.
Each one was labelled, always there were two of a kind, in many cases
four, showing under and upper wings of both male and female. They were
of every colour and shape.
Mrs. Comstock caught her breath sharply. When and where had Elnora
found them? They were the most exquisite sight the woman ever had seen,
so she opened all the boxes to feast on their beautiful contents. As
she did so there came more fully a sense of the distance between her
and her child. She could not understand how Elnora had gone to school,
and performed so much work secretly. When it was finished, to the last
moth, she, the mother who should have been the first confidant and
helper, had been the one to bring disappointment. Small wonder Elnora
had come to hate her.
Mrs. Comstock carefully closed and replaced the boxes; and again stood
looking around the room. This time her eyes rested on some books she
did not remember having seen before, so she picked up one and found
that it was a moth book. She glanced over the first pages and was soon
eagerly reading. When the text reached the classification of species,
she laid it down, took up another and read the introductory chapters.
By that time her brain was in a confused jumble of ideas about
capturing moths with differing baits and bright lights.
She went down stairs thinking deeply. Being unable to sit still and
having nothing else to do she glanced at the clock and began preparing
supper. The work dragged. A chicken was snatched up and dressed
hurriedly. A spice cake sprang into being. Strawberries that had been
intended for preserves went into shortcake. Delicious odours crept from
the cabin. She put many extra touches on the table and then commenced
watching the road. Everything was ready, but Elnora did not come. Then
began the anxious process of trying to keep cooked food warm and not
spoil it. The birds went to bed and dusk came. Mrs. Comstock gave up
the fire and set the supper on the table. Then she went out and sat on
the front-door step watching night creep around her. She started
eagerly as the gate creaked, but it was only Wesley Sinton coming.
“Katharine, Margaret and Elnora passed where I was working this
afternoon, and Margaret got out of the carriage and called me to the
fence. She told me what she had done. I’ve come to say to you that I am
sorry. She has heard me threaten to do it a good many times, but I
never would have got it done. I’d give a good deal if I could undo it,
but I can’t, so I’ve come to tell you how sorry I am.”
“You’ve got something to be sorry for,” said Mrs. Comstock, “but likely
we ain’t thinking of the same thing. It hurts me less to know the
truth, than to live in ignorance. If Mag had the sense of a pewee,
she’d told me long ago. That’s what hurts me, to think that both of you
knew Robert was not worth an hour of honest grief, yet you’d let me
mourn him all these years and neglect Elnora while I did it. If I have
anything to forgive you, that is what it is.”
Wesley removed his hat and sat on a bench.
“Katharine,” he said solemnly, “nobody ever knows how to take you.”
“Would it be asking too much to take me for having a few grains of
plain common sense?” she inquired. “You’ve known all this time that
Comstock got what he deserved, when he undertook to sneak in an unused
way across a swamp, with which he was none too familiar. Now I should
have thought that you’d figure that knowing the same thing would be the
best method to cure me of pining for him, and slighting my child.”
“Heaven only knows we have thought of that, and talked of it often, but
we were both too big cowards. We didn’t dare tell you.”
“So you have gone on year after year, watching me show indifference to
Elnora, and yet a little horse-sense would have pointed out to you that
she was my salvation. Why look at it! Not married quite a year. All his
vows of love and fidelity made to me before the Almighty forgotten in a
few months, and a dance and a Light Woman so alluring he had to lie and
sneak for them. What kind of a prospect is that for a life? I know men
and women. An honourable man is an honourable man, and a liar is a
liar; both are born and not made. One cannot change to the other any
more than that same old leopard can change its spots. After a man tells
a woman the first untruth of that sort, the others come piling thick,
fast, and mountain high. The desolation they bring in their wake
overshadows anything I have suffered completely. If he had lived six
months more I should have known him for what he was born to be. It was
in the blood of him. His father and grandfather before him were
fiddling, dancing people; but I was certain of him. I thought we could
leave Ohio and come out here alone, and I could so love him and
interest him in his work, that he would be a man. Of all the fool,
fruitless jobs, making anything of a creature that begins by deceiving
her, is the foolest a sane woman ever undertook. I am more than sorry
you and Margaret didn’t see your way clear to tell me long ago. I’d
have found it out in a few more months if he had lived, and I wouldn’t
have borne it a day. The man who breaks his vows to me once, doesn’t
get the second chance. I give truth and honour. I have a right to ask
it in return. I am glad I understand at last. Now, if Elnora will
forgive me, we will take a new start and see what we can make out of
what is left of life. If she won’t, then it will be my time to learn
what suffering really means.”
“But she will,” said Wesley. “She must! She can’t help it when things
are explained.”
“I notice she isn’t hurrying any about coming home. Do you know where
she is or what she is doing?”
“I do not. But likely she will be along soon. I must go help Billy with
the night work. Good-bye, Katharine. Thank the Lord you have come to
yourself at last!”
They shook hands and Wesley went down the road while Mrs. Comstock
entered the cabin. She could not swallow food. She stood in the back
door watching the sky for moths, but they did not seem to be very
numerous. Her spirits sank and she breathed unevenly. Then she heard
the front screen. She reached the middle door as Elnora touched the
foot of the stairs.
“Hurry, and get ready, Elnora,” she said. “Your supper is almost
spoiled now.”
Elnora closed the stair door behind her, and for the first time in her
life, threw the heavy lever which barred out anyone from down stairs.
Mrs. Comstock heard the thud, and knew what it meant. She reeled
slightly and caught the doorpost for support. For a few minutes she
clung there, then sank to the nearest chair. After a long time she
arose and stumbling half blindly, she put the food in the cupboard and
covered the table. She took the lamp in one hand, the butter in the
other, and started to the spring house. Something brushed close by her
face, and she looked just in time to see a winged creature rise above
the cabin and sail away.
“That was a night bird,” she muttered. As she stopped to set the butter
in the water, came another thought. “Perhaps it was a moth!” Mrs.
Comstock dropped the butter and hurried out with the lamp; she held it
high above her head and waited until her arms ached. Small insects of
night gathered, and at last a little dusty miller, but nothing came of
any size.
“I must go where they are, if I get them,” muttered Mrs. Comstock.
She went to the barn after the stout pair of high boots she used in
feeding stock in deep snow. Throwing these beside the back door she
climbed to the loft over the spring house, and hunted an old lard oil
lantern and one of first manufacture for oil. Both these she cleaned
and filled. She listened until everything up stairs had been still for
over half an hour. By that time it was past eleven o’clock. Then she
took the lantern from the kitchen, the two old ones, a handful of
matches, a ball of twine, and went from the cabin, softly closing the
door.
Sitting on the back steps, she put on the boots, and then stood gazing
into the perfumed June night, first in the direction of the woods on
her land, then toward the Limberlost. Its outline was so dark and
forbidding she shuddered and went down the garden, following the path
toward the woods, but as she neared the pool her knees wavered and her
courage fled. The knowledge that in her soul she was now glad Robert
Comstock was at the bottom of it made a coward of her, who fearlessly
had mourned him there, nights untold. She could not go on. She skirted
the back of the garden, crossed a field, and came out on the road. Soon
she reached the Limberlost. She hunted until she found the old trail,
then followed it stumbling over logs and through clinging vines and
grasses. The heavy boots clumped on her feet, overhanging branches
whipped her face and pulled her hair. But her eyes were on the sky as
she went straining into the night, hoping to find signs of a living
creature on wing.
By and by she began to see the wavering flight of something she thought
near the right size. She had no idea where she was, but she stopped,
lighted a lantern and hung it as high as she could reach. A little
distance away she placed the second and then the third. The objects
came nearer and sick with disappointment she saw that they were bats.
Crouching in the damp swamp grasses, without a thought of snakes or
venomous insects, she waited, her eyes roving from lantern to lantern.
Once she thought a creature of high flight dropped near the lard oil
light, so she arose breathlessly waiting, but either it passed or it
was an illusion. She glanced at the old lantern, then at the new, and
was on her feet in an instant creeping close. Something large as a
small bird was fluttering around. Mrs. Comstock began to perspire,
while her hand shook wildly. Closer she crept and just as she reached
for it, something similar swept past and both flew away together.
Mrs. Comstock set her teeth and stood shivering. For a long time the
locusts rasped, the whip-poor-wills cried and a steady hum of night
life throbbed in her ears. Away in the sky she saw something coming
when it was no larger than a falling leaf. Straight toward the light it
flew. Mrs. Comstock began to pray aloud.
“This way, O Lord! Make it come this way! Please! O Lord, send it
lower!”
The moth hesitated at the first light, then slowly, easily it came
toward the second, as if following a path of air. It touched a leaf
near the lantern and settled. As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin
yellow spray wet her hand and the surrounding leaves. When its wings
raised above its back, her fingers came together. She held the moth to
the light. It was nearer brown than yellow, and she remembered having
seen some like it in the boxes that afternoon. It was not the one
needed to complete the collection, but Elnora might want it, so Mrs.
Comstock held on. Then the Almighty was kind, or nature was sufficient,
as you look at it, for following the law of its being when disturbed,
the moth again threw the spray by which some suppose it attracts its
kind, and liberally sprinkled Mrs. Comstock’s dress front and arms.
From that instant, she became the best moth bait ever invented. Every
Polyphemus in range hastened to her, and other fluttering creatures of
night followed. The influx came her way. She snatched wildly here and
there until she had one in each hand and no place to put them. She
could see more coming, and her aching heart, swollen with the strain of
long excitement, hurt pitifully. She prayed in broken exclamations that
did not always sound reverent, but never was human soul in more intense
earnest.
Moths were coming. She had one in each hand. They were not yellow, and
she did not know what to do. She glanced around to try to discover some
way to keep what she had, and her throbbing heart stopped and every
muscle stiffened. There was the dim outline of a crouching figure not
two yards away, and a pair of eyes their owner thought hidden, caught
the light in a cold stream. Her first impulse was to scream and fly for
life. Before her lips could open a big moth alighted on her breast
while she felt another walking over her hair. All sense of caution
deserted her. She did not care to live if she could not replace the
yellow moth she had killed. She turned her eyes to those among the
leaves.
“Here, you!” she cried hoarsely. “I need you! Get yourself out here,
and help me. These critters are going to get away from me. Hustle!”
Pete Corson parted the bushes and stepped into the light.
“Oh, it’s you!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I might have known! But you gave
me a start. Here, hold these until I make some sort of bag for them. Go
easy! If you break them I don’t guarantee what will happen to you!”
“Pretty fierce, ain’t you!” laughed Pete, but he advanced and held out
his hands. “For Elnora, I s’pose?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Comstock. “In a mad fit, I trampled one this morning,
and by the luck of the old boy himself it was the last moth she needed
to complete a collection. I got to get another one or die.”
“Then I guess it’s your funeral,” said Pete. “There ain’t a chance in a
dozen the right one will come. What colour was it?”
“Yellow, and big as a bird.”
“The Emperor, likely,” said Pete. “You dig for that kind, and they are
not numerous, so’s ’at you can smash ’em for fun.”
“Well, I can try to get one, anyway,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I forgot all
about bringing anything to put them in. You take a pinch on their wings
until I make a poke.”
Mrs. Comstock removed her apron, tearing off the strings. She
unfastened and stepped from the skirt of her calico dress. With one
apron string she tied shut the band and placket. She pulled a wire pin
from her hair, stuck it through the other string, and using it as a
bodkin ran it around the hem of her skirt, so shortly she had a large
bag. She put several branches inside to which the moths could cling,
closed the mouth partially and held it toward Pete.
“Put your hand well down and let the things go!” she ordered. “But be
careful, man! Don’t run into the twigs! Easy! That’s one. Now the
other. Is the one on my head gone? There was one on my dress, but I
guess it flew. Here comes a kind of a gray-looking one.”
Pete slipped several more moths into the bag.
“Now, that’s five, Mrs. Comstock,” he said. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have
to make that do. You must get out of here lively. Your lights will be
taken for hurry calls, and inside the next hour a couple of men will
ride here like fury. They won’t be nice Sunday-school men, and they
won’t hold bags and catch moths for you. You must go quick!”
Mrs. Comstock laid down the bag and pulled one of the lanterns lower.
“I won’t budge a step,” she said. “This land doesn’t belong to you. You
have no right to order me off it. Here I stay until I get a Yellow
Emperor, and no little petering thieves of this neighbourhood can scare
me away.”
“You don’t understand,” said Pete. “I’m willing to help Elnora, and I’d
take care of you, if I could, but there will be too many for me, and
they will be mad at being called out for nothing.”
“Well, who’s calling them out?” demanded Mrs. Comstock. “I’m catching
moths. If a lot of good-for-nothings get fooled into losing some sleep,
why let them, they can’t hurt me, or stop my work.”
“They can, and they’ll do both.”
“Well, I’ll see them do it!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ve got Robert’s
revolver in my dress, and I can shoot as straight as any man, if I’m
mad enough. Any one who interferes with me to-night will find me mad
a-plenty. There goes another!”
She stepped into the light and waited until a big brown moth settled on
her and was easily taken. Then in light, airy flight came a delicate
pale green thing, and Mrs. Comstock started in pursuit. But the scent
was not right. The moth fluttered high, then dropped lower, still
lower, and sailed away. With outstretched hands Mrs. Comstock pursued
it. She hurried one way and another, then ran over an object which
tripped her and she fell. She regained her feet in an instant, but she
had lost sight of the moth. With livid face she turned to the crouching
man.
“You nasty, sneaking son of Satan!” she cried. “Why are you hiding
there? You made me lose the one I wanted most of any I’ve had a chance
at yet. Get out of here! Go this minute, or I’ll fill your worthless
carcass so full of holes you’ll do to sift cornmeal. Go, I say! I’m
using the Limberlost to-night, and I won’t be stopped by the devil
himself! Cut like fury, and tell the rest of them they can just go
home. Pete is going to help me, and he is all of you I need. Now go!”
The man turned and went. Pete leaned against a tree, held his mouth
shut and shook inwardly. Mrs. Comstock came back panting.
“The old scoundrel made me lose that!” she said. “If any one else comes
snooping around here I’ll just blow them up to start with. I haven’t
time to talk. Suppose that had been yellow! I’d have killed that man,
sure! The Limberlost isn’t safe to-night, and the sooner those whelps
find it out, the better it will be for them.”
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 mothh’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!”