WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK DANCES IN THE MOONLIGHT, AND ELNORA MAKES A
CONFESSION
Billy was swinging in the hammock, at peace with himself and all the
world, when he thought he heard something. He sat bolt upright, his
eyes staring. Once he opened his lips, then thought again and closed
them. The sound persisted. Billy vaulted the fence, and ran down the
road with his queer sidewise hop. When he neared the Comstock cabin, he
left the warm dust of the highway and stepped softly at slower pace
over the rank grasses of the roadside. He had heard aright. The violin
was in the grape arbour, singing a perfect jumble of everything, poured
out in an exultant tumult. The strings were voicing the joy of a happy
girl heart.
Billy climbed the fence enclosing the west woods and crept toward the
arbour. He was not a spy and not a sneak. He merely wanted to satisfy
his child-heart as to whether Mrs. Comstock was at home, and Elnora at
last playing her loved violin with her mother’s consent. One peep
sufficed. Mrs. Comstock sat in the moonlight, her head leaning against
the arbour; on her face was a look of perfect peace and contentment. As
he stared at her the bow hesitated a second and Mrs. Comstock spoke:
“That’s all very melodious and sweet,” she said, “but I do wish you
could play Money Musk and some of the tunes I danced as a girl.”
Elnora had been carefully avoiding every note that might be reminiscent
of her father. At the words she laughed softly and began “Turkey in the
Straw.” An instant later Mrs. Comstock was dancing in the moon light.
Ammon sprang to her side, caught her in his arms, while to Elnora’s
laughter and the violin’s impetus they danced until they dropped
panting on the arbour bench.
Billy scarcely knew when he reached the road. His light feet barely
touched the soft way, so swiftly he flew. He vaulted the fence and
burst into the house.
“Aunt Margaret! Uncle Wesley!” he screamed. “Listen! Listen! She’s
playing it! Elnora’s playing her violin at home! And Aunt Kate is
dancing like anything before the arbour! I saw her in the moonlight! I
ran down! Oh, Aunt Margaret!”
Billy fled sobbing to Margaret’s breast.
“Why Billy!” she chided. “Don’t cry, you little dunce! That’s what
we’ve all prayed for these many years; but you must be mistaken about
Kate. I can’t believe it.”
Billy lifted his head. “Well, you just have to!” he said. “When I say I
saw anything, Uncle Wesley knows I did. The city man was dancing with
her. They danced together and Elnora laughed. But it didn’t look funny
to me; I was scared.”
“Who was it said ‘wonders never cease,’” asked Wesley. “You mark my
word, once you get Kate Comstock started, you can’t stop her. There’s a
wagon load of penned-up force in her. Dancing in the moonlight! Well,
I’ll be hanged!”
Billy was at his side instantly. “Whoever does it will have to hang me,
too,” he cried.
Sinton threw his arm around Billy and drew him closely. “Tell us all
about it, son,” he said. Billy told. “And when Elnora just stopped a
breath, ‘Can’t you play some of the old things I knew when I was a
girl?’ said her ma. Then Elnora began to do a thing that made you want
to whirl round and round, and quicker ’an scat there was her ma
a-whirling. The city man, he ups and grabs her and whirls, too, and
back in the woods I was going just like they did. Elnora begins to
laugh, and I ran to tell you, cos I knew you’d like to know. Now, all
the world is right, ain’t it?” ended Billy in supreme satisfaction.
“You just bet it is!” said Wesley.
Billy looked steadily at Margaret. “Is it, Aunt Margaret?”
Margaret Sinton smiled at him bravely.
An hour later when Billy was ready to climb the stairs to his room, he
went to Margaret to say good night. He leaned against her an instant,
then brought his lips to her ear. “Wish I could get your little girls
back for you!” he whispered and dashed toward the stairs.
Down at the Comstock cabin the violin played on until Elnora was so
tired she scarcely could lift the bow. Then Philip went home. The women
walked to the gate with him, and stood watching him from sight.
“That’s what I call one decent young man!” said Mrs. Comstock. “To see
him fit in with us, you’d think he’d been brought up in a cabin; but
it’s likely he’s always had the very cream o’ the pot.”
“Yes, I think so,” laughed Elnora, “but it hasn’t hurt him. I’ve never
seen anything I could criticise. He’s teaching me so much,
unconsciously. You know he graduated from Harvard, and has several
degrees in law. He’s coming in the morning, and we are going to put in
a big day on Catocalæ.”
“Which is——?”
“Those gray moths with wings that fold back like big flies, and they
appear as if they had been carved from old wood. Then, when they fly,
the lower wings flash out and they are red and black, or gold and
black, or pink and black, or dozens of bright, beautiful colours
combined with black. No one ever has classified all of them and written
their complete history, unless the Bird Woman is doing it now. She
wants everything she can get about them.”
“I remember,” said Mrs. Comstock. “They are mighty pretty things. I’ve
started up slews of them from the vines covering the logs, all my life.
I must be cautious and catch them after this, but they seem powerful
spry. I might get hold of something rare.” She thought intently and
added, “And wouldn’t know it if I did. It would just be my luck. I’ve
had the rarest thing on earth in reach this many a day and only had the
wit to cinch it just as it was going. I’ll bet I don’t let anything
else escape me.”
Next morning Philip came early, and he and Elnora went at once to the
fields and woods. Mrs. Comstock had come to believe so implicitly in
him that she now stayed at home to complete the work before she joined
them, and when she did she often sat sewing, leaving them wandering
hours at a time. It was noon before she finished, and then she packed a
basket of lunch. She found Elnora and Philip near the violet patch,
which was still in its prime. They all lunched together in the shade of
a wild crab thicket, with flowers spread at their feet, and the gold
orioles streaking the air with flashes of light and trailing ecstasy
behind them, while the red-wings, as always, asked the most impertinent
questions. Then Mrs. Comstock carried the basket back to the cabin, and
Philip and Elnora sat on a log, resting a few minutes. They had
unexpected luck, and both were eager to continue the search.
“Do you remember your promise about these violets?” asked he.
“To-morrow is Edith’s birthday, and if I’d put them special delivery on
the morning train, she’d get them in the late afternoon. They ought to
keep that long. She leaves for the North next day.”
“Of course, you may have them,” said Elnora. “We will quit long enough
before supper to gather a large bunch. They can be packed so they will
carry all right. They should be perfectly fresh, especially if we
gather them this evening and let them drink all night.”
Then they went back to hunt Catocalæ. It was a long and a happy search.
It led them into new, unexplored nooks of the woods, past a red-poll
nest, and where goldfinches prospected for thistledown for the cradles
they would line a little later. It led them into real forest, where
deep, dark pools lay, where the hermit thrush and the wood robin
extracted the essence from all other bird melody, and poured it out in
their pure bell-tone notes. It seemed as if every old gray tree-trunk,
slab of loose bark, and prostrate log yielded the flashing gray
treasures; while of all others they seemed to take alarm most easily,
and be most difficult to capture.
Philip came to Elnora at dusk, daintily holding one by the body, its
dark wings showing and its long slender legs trying to clasp his
fingers and creep from his hold.
“Oh for mercy’s sake!” cried Elnora, staring at him.
“I half believe it!” exulted Ammon.
“Did you ever see one?”
“Only in collections, and very seldom there.”
Elnora studied the black wings intently. “I surely believe that’s
Sappho,” she marvelled. “The Bird Woman will be overjoyed.”
“We must get the cyanide jar quickly,” said Philip.
“I wouldn’t lose her for anything. Such a chase as she led me!”
Elnora brought the jar and began gathering up paraphernalia.
“When you make a find like that,” she said, “it’s the right time to
quit and feel glorious all the rest of that day. I tell you I’m proud!
We will go now. We have barely time to carry out our plans before
supper. Won’t mother be pleased to see that we have a rare one?”
“I’d like to see any one more pleased than I am!” said Philip Ammon. “I
feel as if I’d earned my supper to-night. Let’s go.”
He took the greater part of the load and stepped aside for Elnora to
precede him. She followed the path, broken by the grazing cattle,
toward the cabin and nearest the violet patch she stopped, laid down
her net, and the things she carried. Philip passed her and hurried
straight toward the back gate.
“Aren’t you going to——?” began Elnora.
“I’m going to get this moth home in a hurry,” he said. “This cyanide
has lost its strength, and it’s not working well. We need some fresh in
the jar.”
He had forgotten the violets! Elnora stood looking after him, a curious
expression on her face. One second so—then she picked up the net and
followed. At the blue-bordered pool she paused and half turned back,
then she closed her lips firmly and went on. It was nine o’clock when
Philip said good-bye, and started to town. His gay whistle floated to
them from the farthest corner of the Limberlost. Elnora complained of
being tired, so she went to her room and to bed. But sleep would not
come. Thought was racing in her brain and the longer she lay the wider
awake she grew. At last she softly slipped from bed, lighted her lamp
and began opening boxes. Then she went to work. Two hours later a
beautiful birch bark basket, strongly and artistically made, stood on
her table. She set a tiny alarm clock at three, returned to bed and
fell asleep instantly with a smile on her lips.
She was on the floor with the first tinkle of the alarm, and hastily
dressing, she picked up the basket and a box to fit it, crept down the
stairs, and out to the violet patch. She was unafraid as it was growing
light, and lining the basket with damp mosses she swiftly began
picking, with practised hands, the best of the flowers. She scarcely
could tell which were freshest at times, but day soon came creeping
over the Limberlost and peeped at her. The robins awoke all their
neighbours, and a babel of bird notes filled the air. The dew was
dripping, while the first strong rays of light fell on a world in which
Elnora worshipped. When the basket was filled to overflowing, she set
it in the stout pasteboard box, packed it solid with mosses, tied it
firmly and slipped under the cord a note she had written the previous
night.
Then she took a short cut across the woods and walked swiftly to
Onabasha. It was after six o’clock, but all of the city she wished to
avoid were asleep. She had no trouble in finding a small boy out, and
she stood at a distance waiting while he rang Dr. Ammon’s bell and
delivered the package for Philip to a maid, with the note which was to
be given him at once.
On the way home through the woods passing some baited trees she
collected the captive moths. She entered the kitchen with them so
naturally that Mrs. Comstock made no comment. After breakfast Elnora
went to her room, cleared away all trace of the night’s work and was
out in the arbour mounting moths when Philip came down the road. “I am
tired sitting,” she said to her mother. “I think I will walk a few rods
and meet him.”
“Who’s a trump?” he called from afar.
“Not you!” retorted Elnora. “Confess that you forgot!”
“Completely!” said Philip. “But luckily it would not have been fatal. I
wrote Polly last week to send Edith something appropriate to-day, with
my card. But that touch from the woods will be very effective. Thank
you more than I can say. Aunt Anna and I unpacked it to see the basket,
and it was a beauty. She says you are always doing such things.”
“Well, I hope not!” laughed Elnora. “If you’d seen me sneaking out
before dawn, not to awaken mother and coming in with moths to make her
think I’d been to the trees, you’d know it was a most especial
occasion.”
Then Philip understood two things: Elnora’s mother did not know of the
early morning trip to the city, and the girl had come to meet him to
tell him so.
“You were a brick to do it!” he whispered as he closed the gate behind
them. “I’ll never forget you for it. Thank you ever so much.”
“I did not do that for you,” said Elnora tersely. “I did it mostly to
preserve my own self-respect. I saw you were forgetting. If I did it
for anything besides that, I did it for her.”
“Just look what I’ve brought!” said Philip, entering the arbour and
greeting Mrs. Comstock. “Borrowed it of the Bird Woman. And it isn’t
hers. A rare edition of Catocalæ with coloured plates. I told her the
best I could, and she said to try for Sappho here. I suspect the Bird
Woman will be out presently. She was all excitement.”
Then they bent over the book together and with the mounted moth before
them determined her family. The Bird Woman did come later, and carried
the moth away, to put into a book and Elnora and Philip were freshly
filled with enthusiasm.
So these days were the beginning of the weeks that followed. Six of
them flying on Time’s wings, each filled to the brim with interest.
After June, the moth hunts grew less frequent; the fields and woods
were searched for material for Elnora’s grade work. The most absorbing
occupation they found was in carrying out Mrs. Comstock’s suggestion to
learn the vital thing for which each month was distinctive, and make
that the key to the nature work. They wrote out a list of the months,
opposite each the things all of them could suggest which seemed to
pertain to that month alone, and then tried to sift until they found
something typical. Mrs. Comstock was a great help. Her mother had been
Dutch and had brought from Holland numerous quaint sayings and
superstitions easily traceable to Pliny’s Natural History; and in Mrs.
Comstock’s early years in Ohio she had heard much Indian talk among her
elders, so she knew the signs of each season, and sometimes they
helped. Always her practical thought and sterling common sense were
useful. When they were afield until exhausted they came back to the
cabin for food, to prepare specimens and classify them, and to talk
over the day. Sometimes Philip brought books and read while Elnora and
her mother worked, and every night Mrs. Comstock asked for the violin.
Her perfect hunger for music was sufficient evidence of how she had
suffered without it. So the days crept by, golden, filled with useful
work and pure pleasure.
The grosbeak had led the family in the maple abroad and a second brood,
in a wild grape vine clambering over the well, was almost ready for
flight. The dust lay thick on the country roads, the days grew warmer;
summer was just poising to slip into fall, and Philip remained, coming
each day as if he had belonged there always.
One warm August afternoon Mrs. Comstock looked up from the ruffle on
which she was engaged to see a blue-coated messenger enter the gate.
“Is Philip Ammon here?” asked the boy.
“He is,” said Mrs. Comstock.
“I have a message for him.”
“He is in the woods back of the cabin. I will ring the bell. Do you
know if it is important?”
“Urgent,” said the boy; “I rode hard.”
Mrs. Comstock stepped to the back door and clanged the dinner bell
sharply, paused a second, and rang again. In a short time Philip and
Elnora ran down the path.
“Are you ill, mother?” cried Elnora.
Mrs. Comstock indicated the boy. “There is an important message for
Philip,” she said.
He muttered an excuse and tore open the telegram. His colour faded
slightly. “I have to take the first train,” he said. “My father is ill
and I am needed.”
He handed the sheet to Elnora. “I have about two hours, as I remember
the trains north, but my things are all over Uncle Doc’s house, so I
must go at once.”
“Certainly,” said Elnora, giving back the message. “Is there anything I
can do to help? Mother, bring Philip a glass of buttermilk to start on.
I will gather what you have here.”
“Never mind. There is nothing of importance. I don’t want to be
hampered. I’ll send for it if I miss anything I need.”
Philip drank the milk, said good-bye to Mrs. Comstock; thanked her for
all her kindness, and turned to Elnora.
“Will you walk to the edge of the Limberlost with me?” he asked. Elnora
assented. Mrs. Comstock followed to the gate, urged him to come again
soon, and repeated her good-bye. Then she went back to the arbour to
await Elnora’s return. As she watched down the road she smiled softly.
“I had an idea he would speak to me first,” she thought, “but this may
change things some. He hasn’t time. Elnora will come back a happy girl,
and she has good reason. He is a model young man. Her lot will be very
different from mine.”
She picked up her embroidery and began setting dainty precise little
stitches, possible only to certain women.
On the road Elnora spoke first. “I do hope it is nothing serious,” she
said. “Is he usually strong?”
“Quite strong,” said Philip. “I am not at all alarmed but I am very
much ashamed. I have been well enough for the past month to have gone
home and helped him with some critical cases that were keeping him at
work in this heat. I was enjoying myself so I wouldn’t offer to go, and
he would not ask me to come, so long as he could help it. I have
allowed him to overtax himself until he is down, and mother and Polly
are north at our cottage. He’s never been sick before, and it’s
probable I am to blame that he is now.”
“He intended you to stay this long when you came,” urged Elnora.
“Yes, but it’s hot in Chicago. I should have remembered him. He is
always thinking of me. Possibly he has needed me for days. I am ashamed
to go to him in splendid condition and admit that I was having such a
fine time I forgot to come home.”
“You have had a fine time, then?” asked Elnora.
They had reached the fence. Philip vaulted over to take a short cut
across the fields. He turned and looked at her.
“The best, the sweetest, and most wholesome time any man ever had in
this world,” he said. “Elnora, if I talked hours I couldn’t make you
understand what a girl I think you are. I never in all my life hated
anything as I hate leaving you. It seems to me that I have not strength
to do it.”
“If you have learned anything worth while from me,” said Elnora, “that
should be it. Just to have strength to go to your duty, and to go
quickly.”
He caught the hand she held out to him in both his. “Elnora, these days
we have had together, have they been sweet to you?”
“Beautiful days!” said Elnora. “Each like a perfect dream to be thought
over and over all my life. Oh, they have been the only really happy
days I’ve ever known; these days rich with mother’s love, and doing
useful work with your help. Good-bye! You must hurry!”
Philip gazed at her. He tried to drop her hand, only clutched it
closer. Suddenly he drew her toward him. “Elnora,” he whispered, “will
you kiss me good-bye?”
Elnora drew back and stared at him with wide eyes. “I’d strike you
sooner!” she said. “Have I ever said or done anything in your presence
that made you feel free to ask that, Philip Ammon?”
“No!” panted Philip. “No! I think so much of you I wanted to touch your
lips once before I left you. You know, Elnora——”
“Don’t distress yourself,” said Elnora calmly. “I am broad enough to
judge you sanely. I know what you mean. It would be no harm to you. It
would not matter to me, but here we will think of some one else. Edith
Carr would not want your lips to-morrow if she knew they had touched
mine to-day. I was wise to say: ‘Go quickly!’”
Philip still clung to her. “Will you write me?” he begged.
“No,” said Elnora. “There is nothing to say, save good-bye. We can do
that now.”
He held on. “Promise that you will write me only one letter,” he urged.
“I want just one message from you to lock in my desk, and keep always.
Promise you will write once, Elnora.”
She looked into his eyes, and smiled serenely. “If the talking trees
tell me this winter, the secret of how a man may grow perfect, I will
write you what it is, Philip. In all the time I have known you, I never
have liked you so little. Good-bye.”
She drew away her hand and swiftly turned back to the road. Philip
Ammon, wordless, started toward Onabasha on a run.
Elnora crossed the road, climbed the fence and sought the shelter of
their own woods. She chose a diagonal course and followed it until she
came to the path leading past the violet patch. She went down this
hurriedly. Her hands were clenched at her side, her eyes dry and
bright, her cheeks red-flushed, and her breath coming fast. When she
reached the patch she turned into it and stood looking around her.
The mosses were dry, the flowers gone, weeds a foot high covered it.
She turned away and went on down the path until she was almost in sight
of the cabin.
Mrs. Comstock smiled and waited in the arbour until it occurred to her
that Elnora was a long time coming, so she went to the gate. The road
stretched away toward the Limberlost empty and lonely. Then she knew
that Elnora had gone into their own woods and would come in the back
way. She could not understand why the girl did not hurry to her with
what she would have to tell. She went out and wandered around the
garden. Then she stepped into the path and started along the way
leading to the woods, past the pool now framed in a thick setting of
yellow lilies. Then she saw, and stopped, gasping for breath. Her hands
flew up and her lined face grew ghastly. She stared at the sky and then
at the prostrate girl figure. Over and over she tried to speak, but
only a dry breath came. She turned and fled back to the garden.
In the familiar enclosure she gazed around her like a caged animal
seeking escape. The sun beat down on her bare head mercilessly, and
mechanically she moved to the shade of a half-grown hickory tree that
voluntarily had sprouted beside the milk house. At her feet lay an axe
with which she made kindlings for fires. She stooped and picked it up.
The memory of that prone figure sobbing in the grass caught her with a
renewed spasm. She shut her eyes as if to close it out. That made
hearing so acute she felt certain she heard Elnora moaning beside the
path. The eyes flew open. They looked straight at a few spindling
tomato plants set too near the tree and stunted by its shade. Mrs.
Comstock whirled on the hickory and swung the axe. Her hair shook down,
her clothing became disarranged, in the heat the perspiration streamed,
but stroke fell on stroke until the tree crashed over, grazing a corner
of the milk house and smashing the garden fence on the east.
At the sound Elnora sprang to her feet and came running down the garden
walk. “Mother!” she cried. “Mother! What in the world are you doing?”
Mrs. Comstock wiped her ghastly face on her apron. “I’ve laid out to
cut that tree for years,” she said. “It shades the beets in the
morning, and the tomatoes in the afternoon!”
Elnora uttered one wild little cry and fled into her mother’s arms. “Oh
mother!” she sobbed. “Will you ever forgive me?”
Mrs. Comstock’s arms swept together in a tight grip around Elnora.
“There isn’t a thing on God’s footstool from a to izzard I won’t
forgive you, my precious girl!” she said. “Tell mother what it is!”
Elnora lifted her wet face. “He told me,” she panted, “just as soon as
he decently could—that second day he told me. Almost all his life he’s
been engaged to a girl at home. He never cared anything about me. He
was only interested in the moths and growing strong.”
Mrs. Comstock’s arms tightened. With a shaking hand she stroked the
bright hair.
“Tell me, honey,” she said. “Is he to blame for a single one of these
tears?”
“Not one!” sobbed Elnora. “Oh mother, I won’t forgive you if you don’t
believe that. Not one! He never said, or looked, or did anything all
the world might not have known. He likes me very much as a friend. He
hated to go dreadfully!”
“Elnora!” the mother’s head bent until the white hair mingled with the
brown. “Elnora, why didn’t you tell me at first?”
Elnora caught her breath in a sharp snatch. “I know I should!” she
sobbed. “I will bear any punishment for not, but I didn’t feel as if I
possibly could. I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” the shaking hand was on the hair again.
“Afraid you wouldn’t let him come!” panted Elnora. “And oh, mother, I
wanted him so!”