A Girl of the Limberlost/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
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 by the roadside. He had heard aright. The violin was in the grape arbour, singing like mad, 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 down 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 avoiding carefully every note that might be reminiscent of her father. At the words she laughed softly and struck into "Turkey in the Straw." An instant later Mrs. Comstock was dancing like mad in the moonlight. 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 got back on 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 to his haven and sobbed on 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 would 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. "Well, whoever does it will have to hang me, too," he cried.
Sinton threw his arm around Billy and drew him close. "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 as he leaned against Sinton 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, and brought his lips close to her ear. "Wish I could get your little girls back for you!" he whispered and dashed for the stairs.
Down at the Comstock cabin the violin played on until Elnora was so tired she scarcely could lift the bow. Then Ammon 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 raised 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 Ammon 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 Ammon 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 Ammon, "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 well that long. She leaves for the north next day."
"Of course, you can have them," said Elnora. "We will quit long enough before supper to gather a great 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, by 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.
Ammon 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, and stared at him.
"I half believe it!" exulted Ammon.
"Did you ever see one?"
"Only in collections, and mighty 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 Ammon. "I wouldn't lose her for a hundred dollars. Such a chase as she led me!"
Elnora got 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 anyone more pleased than I am!" said Philip Ammon. "I feel as if I'd earned my supper tonight. Let's go."
He took the greater part of the load and stepped aside for Elnora to precede him. She went down 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. Ammon 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 Ammon 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 so near morning, and lining the basket with damp mosses she swiftly began picking with practised hands the youngest of the flowers. It was so dark she scarcely could tell which were freshest at times, but day soon came creeping over the Limberlost and peeped down at her. The robins awoke all their neighbours, and a babel of bird notes filled the air. The dew was dripping, and 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 Ammon came down the road, "I'm tired sitting," she said to her mother. "I think I will walk a few rods and meet him."
"Who's a trump?" called Ammon from afar.
"Well, not you!" retorted Elnora. "Confess that you forgot!"
"Completely!" said Ammon. "But luckily it would not have been fatal. I wrote Polly last week to send Edith something appropriate and handsome to-day, with my card. But that touch from the woods will be mighty 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 things like that."
"Well, I hope not!" laughed Elnora. "If you'd seen me sneaking out before dawn, not to waken 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 Ammon 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. You are too kind to me."
"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 Ammon 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 Ammon 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 scoured 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 Ammon 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 Ammon stayed on, coming each day as if he had belonged there always and expected to remain forever.
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, and he will come. 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 Ammon and Elnora came down the path on the run.
"Are you ill, mother?" cried Elnora.
Mrs. Comstock indicated the boy. "There is an important message for Philip," she said.
Ammon 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, get 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."
Ammon drank the milk, said good-bye to Mrs. Comstock, repeatedly 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 mighty 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 last month to have gone home and helped him with some critical cases that were keeping him at work in his heat. I was enjoying myself so I wouldn't offer to do, 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 time I forgot to come home."
"You have had a fine time, then?" asked Elnora.
They had reached the fence. Ammon 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 gotten anything worth while from me," said Elnora, "that should be it. Just to have strength to go to your duty, and to go quickly."
Ammon 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!"
Ammon gazed at her. He tried to drop her hand, and 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 Ammon. "No! I think so much of I you, I just 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!'"
Ammon 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."
Ammon 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."
Elnora looked straight 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 ave 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 took 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 sides, 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 dawned on 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 back 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 over to the shade of a half-grown hickory tree that voluntarily had sprouted by the milk house. At her feet lay an axe with which she made kindlings for fires. She stooped and picked it up. 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 by the path. The eyes flew open. They fell squarely on 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 just 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!"