A Girl of the Limberlost/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
Wherein Mrs. Comstock Experiments with Rejuvenation, and Elnora Teaches Natural History
For the next week Mrs. Comstock and Elnora worked so hard there was no time to talk, and they were compelled to sleep from physical exhaustion. Neither of them made any pretence of eating, for they could not swallow without a great effort, so they drank milk and worked. Elnora went on setting bait for Catacolæ and Sphinginæ, which, unlike the big moths of June, live several months. She took all the dragon-flies and butter-flies she could, and when she went over the list for the man of India, she found, to her amazement, that with Ammon's help she once more had it complete save a pair of Yellow Emperors.
This circumstance was so amazing she had a fleeting thought of writing Ammon and asking him to see if he could not secure her a pair. She did tell the Bird Woman, and from every source at her command she tried to complete the series with these moths, and could not find any for sale.
"I think the mills of the Gods are grinding this grist," said Elnora, "and we might as well wait patiently until they choose to send a Yellow Emperor."
Mrs. Comstock invented work. When she had nothing more to do, she hoed in the garden although the earth was hard and dry and there were no plants that really needed attention. Then came a notification that Elnora would be compelled to attend a week's session of the Teachers' Institute held at the county seat twenty miles north of Onabasha the following week. That gave them something of which to think and real work to do. Elnora was requested to bring her violin. As she was on the programme of one of the most important sessions for a talk on nature work in grade schools, she was driven to prepare her speech, and to select and practise some music. Her mother turned her attention to clothing.
They went to Onabasha together and purchased a simple and appropriate fall suit and hat, goods for a dainty little coloured frock, and a dress skirt and several fancy waists. Margaret Sinton came down and the sewing began. When everything was finished and packed, Elnora kissed her mother good-bye at the depot, and the train pulled out. Mrs. Comstock went into the waiting-room and dropped into a seat to rest. Her heart was so sore her whole right side felt tender. She was half starved for the food she had no appetite to take. She had worked in dogged determination until she was exhausted. For a time she simply sat and rested. Then she began to think. She was glad Elnora had gone where she would be compelled to fix her mind on other things for a few days. She remembered the girl had said she wanted to go.
School would begin the following week. She thought over what Elnora would have to do to accomplish her work successfully. She would be compelled to arise at six o'clock, walk three miles through varying weather, lead the high school orchestra, and then put in the rest of the day travelling from building to building over the city, teaching a specified length of time every week in each room. She must have her object lessons ready, and she must do a certain amount of practising with the orchestra. Then a cold lunch at noon, and a three-mile walk at night.
"Humph!" said Mrs. Comstock. "To get through that the girl would have to be made of cast-iron. I wonder how I can help her best?"
She plunged in deepest thought again.
"The less she sees of what she's been having all summer, the sooner she'll feel better about it," she muttered.
She arose, went to the bank and inquired for the cashier.
"I want to know just how I am fixed here," she said.
The cashier laughed. "Well, you haven't been in a hurry," he replied. "We have been ready for you any time these twenty years, but you didn't seem to pay much attention. Your account is rather flourishing. Interest, when it gets to compounding, is quite a money breeder. Come back here to a table and I will show you your balances."
Mrs. Comstock sank into a chair and waited while the cashier read a jumble of figures to her. It meant that her deposits had exceeded her expenses from one to three hundred dollars a year, according to the cattle, sheep, hogs poultry, butter, and eggs she had sold. The aggregate of these sums had been compounding interest throughout the years. Mrs. Comstock stared at the total with dazed and unbelieving eyes. Through her sick heart rushed the realization, that if she merely had stood before that wicket and asked one question, she would have known that all those bitter years of skimping for Elnora and herself had been unnecessary. She arose and went back to the depot.
"I want to send a message," she said. She picked up the pencil and, with rash extravagance, wrote, "Found money at bank didn't know about. If you want to go to college, come on first train and get ready." She hesitated a second and then she said to herself grimly, "Yes, I'll pay for that, too," and recklessly added, "With love, Mother." Then she sat waiting for the answer. It came in less than an hour. "Going to teach this winter. With dearest love, Elnora."
Mrs. Comstock held the message a long time. When she arose she was ravenously hungry, but the pain in her heart was a little easier. She went to a restaurant and got some food, then to a dressmaker where she ordered four dresses, two very plain everyday ones, a serviceable dark gray cloth suit, and a soft light gray silk with touches of lavender and lace. She made a heavy list of purchases at Brownlee's, and the remainder of the day she did business in her direct and spirited way. At night she was so tired she scarcely could walk home, but she built a fire and cooked and ate a hearty meal.
Later she went out by the west fence and gathered an armful of tansy which she boiled to a thick green tea. Then she stirred in oatmeal until it was a stiff paste. She spread a sheet over her bed and began tearing strips of old muslin. She bandaged each hand and arm with the mixture and plastered the soggy, evil-smelling stuff in a thick poultice over her face and neck. She was so tired she had to sleep, and when she awoke she was half skinned. She bathed her face and hands, did the work and went back to town, coming home at night to go through the same process.
By the third morning she was a raw even red, the fourth, she had faded to a brilliant pink under the soothing influence of a cream recommended. That day came a letter from Elnora saying that she would remain where she was until Saturday morning, and then come to Ellen Brownlee's at Onabasha and stay for the Saturday's session of teachers to arrange their year's work. Sunday was Ellen's last day at home, and she wanted Elnora very much. She had to get together the orchestra and practise them Sunday; and could not come home until after school Monday night. That suited Mrs. Comstock, and she at once answered the letter saying so.
The next day Mrs. Comstock was a pale pink, and the following a delicate porcelain white. That day she went to a hairdresser and had the great rope of snowy hair which covered her scalp washed, dressed, and fastened with such pins and combs as were decided to be most becoming. She took samples of her dresses, went to a milliner, and bought a street hat to match her suit, and a gray satin with lavender orchids to wear with the silk dress. Her last investment was a loose coat of soft gray broadcloth with white lining, and touches of lavender on the embroidered collar, and gray gloves to match.
Then she went home, rested and worked by turns until Monday. When school closed on that evening, and Elnora, so tired she almost trembled, came down the long walk after a late session of teachers' meeting, a messenger boy stopped her.
"There's a lady wants to see you most important. I am to take you to the place," he said.
Elnora groaned. She could not imagine who wanted her, but there was nothing to do but go and find out, tired and anxious to see her mother as she was.
"This is the place," said the boy, and went his way whistling. Elnora was three blocks from the high school building on the same street. She was before a quaint old house, fresh with paint and covered with vines. There was a long wide lot, grass-covered, closely set with trees, and a barn and chicken park at the back that seemed to be occupied. Elnora stepped on the veranda which was furnished with straw rugs, bent-hickory chairs, hanging baskets, and a table with a work-box and magazines, and knocked at the screen door.
Inside she could see bare polished floors, walls freshly papered in low-toned harmonious colours, straw rugs and madras curtains. It seemed to be a restful, homelike place to which she had come, and a second later down an open stairway came a tall, dark-eyed woman with cheeks faintly pink and a crown of fluffy snow-white hair. She wore a lavender gingham dress with white collar and cuffs, and she called as she advanced, "That screen isn't latched! Open it and come see your brand-new mother, my girl."
Elnora stepped inside the door. "Mother!" she cried. "You my mother! I don't believe it!"
"Well, you better!" said Mrs. Comstock, "because it's true! You said you wished I were like the other girls' mothers, and I've shot as close the mark as I could without any practice. I thought that walk would be too much for you this winter, so I just rented this house and moved in, to be near you, and help more in case I'm needed. I've only lived here a day, but I like it so well I've a mortal big notion to buy the place."
"But, mother!" protested Elnora, clinging to her wonderingly. "You are perfectly beautiful, and this house is a little paradise, but how will we ever pay for it? We can't afford it!"
"Humph! Have you forgotten I telegraphed you I'd found some money I didn't know about? All I've done is paid for, and plenty more to settle for all I propose to do."
Mrs. Comstock glanced around with supreme satisfaction.
"I may get homesick as a pup before spring," she said, "but if I do I can go back. If I don't, I'll sell some timber and put a few oil wells where they don't show much. I can have land enough cleared for a few fields and put a tenant on our farm, and we will buy this and settle here. It's for sale."
"You don't look it, but you've surely gone mad!" exclaimed Elnora.
"Just the reverse, my girl," said Mrs. Comstock, "I've gone sane. If you are going to undertake this work, you must be convenient to it. And your mother should be where she can see that you are properly dressed, fed, and cared for. This is our—let me think—reception room. How do you like it? This door leads to your workroom and study. I didn't do much there because I wasn't sure of my way. But I knew you would want a rug, curtains, table, shelves for books, and a case for your specimens, so I had a carpenter shelve and enclose that end of it. Looks pretty neat to me. The dining room and kitchen are back, one of the cows in the barn, and some chickens in the coop. I understand that none of the other girls' mothers milk a cow, so a neighbour boy will tend to ours for a third of the milk. There are three bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Go take one, get in some fresh clothes, and come to supper. You can find your room because your things are in it."
Elnora kissed her mother over and over, and hurried upstairs. She identified her room by the dressing-case. There was a pretty rug, and curtains, white iron bed, plain and rocking chairs to match her case, a shirtwaist chest, and the big closet was filled with her old clothing and several new dresses. She found the bathroom, bathed, dressed iIn fresh linen and went down to a supper that was an evidence of Mrs. Comstock's highest art in cooking. Elnora was so hungry she ate her first real meal in two weeks. But the bites went down slowly because she forgot about them in watching her mother.
"How on earth did you do it?" she said at last. "I always thought you were naturally brown as a nut."
"Oh, that was just tan and sunburn!" explained Mrs. Comstock. "I always knew I was white underneath it. I hated to shade my face because I hadn't anything but a sunbonnet, and I couldn't stand for it to touch my ears, so I went bareheaded and took all the colour I accumulated. But when I began to think of moving you in to your work, I saw I must put up an appearance that wouldn't disgrace you, so I thought I'd best remove the crust. It took some time, and I hope I may die before I ever endure the feel and the smell of the stuff I used again, but it skinned me nicely. What you now see is my own with just a little dust of rice powder, for protection. I'm sort of tender yet."
"And your lovely, lovely hair?" breathed Elnora.
"Hairdresser did that!" said Mrs. Comstock. "It cost like smoke. But I watched her, and with a little help from you I can wash it alone next time, though it will be hard work. I let her monkey with it until she said she had found 'my style.' Then I tore it down and had her show me how to build it up again three times. I thought my arms would drop. When I paid the bill for her work, the time I'd taken, the pins, and combs she'd used, I nearly had heart failure, but I didn't turn a hair before her. I just smiled at her sweetly and said, 'How reasonable you are!' Come to think of it, she was! She might have charged me ten dollars for what she did just as well as nine seventy-five. I couldn't have helped myself. I had made no bargain to begin on."
Then Elnora leaned back in her chair and shouted, in a gust of hearty laughter, and a little of the ache ceased in her breast. There was no time to think, the remainder of that evening, she was so tired she had to sleep, and her mother did not awaken her until she barely had time to dress, breakfast and get to school. There was nothing in the new life to remind her of the old, while it seemed as if there never came a minute for retrospection, but her mother appeared on the scene with more work, or some entertaining thing to do.
Mrs. Comstock invited Elnora's friends to visit her, and proved herself a bright and interesting hostess. She digested a subject before she spoke; and when she advanced a view, her point was sure to be original and tersely expressed. Before three months people waited to hear what she had to say. She kept her appearance so in mind that she made a handsome and a distinguished figure.
Elnora never mentioned Philip Ammon, neither did Mrs. Comstock. Early in December came a note and a big box from him. It contained several books on nature subjects which would be a great help in school work, a number of conveniences Elnora could not afford, and a pair of glass-covered plaster casts for each large moth she had. In these the upper and under wings of male and female showed. Ammon explained that she would break her specimens easily, carrying them about in boxes. He had seen these and thought they would be of use. Elnora was delighted with them, and at once began the tedious process of softening the mounted moths and fitting them to the casts moulded to receive them. Her time was so taken in school, she progressed slowly, so her mother undertook this work. After trying one or two very common ones she learned to handle the most delicate with ease. She took keen pride in relaxing the tense moths, fitting them to the cases, polishing the glass covers to the last degree and sealing them. The results were beautiful to behold.
Soon after Elnora wrote Ammon:
Dear Friend:
I am writing to thank you for the books, and the box of conveniences sent me for my work. I can use everything with fine results. Hope I am giving good satisfaction in my position. You will be interested to learn that when the summer's work was classified and pinned, I again had my complete collection for the man of India, save a Yellow Emperor. I have tried everywhere I know, so has the Bird Woman. We cannot find a pair for sale. Fate is against me, at least this season. I shall have to wait until next year and try again.
Thank you very much for helping me with my collection and for the books and things.
Sincerely yours,
Ammon was disappointed over that note and instead of keeping it he tore it into bits and dropped them into the waste basket.
That was precisely what Elnora hoped he would do. Christmas brought beautiful cards of greeting to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora, Easter others, and the year went rapidly toward spring. Elnora's work had been intensely absorbing, and she had gone into it with all her power. She had made it a wonderful success and won new friends. Mrs. Comstock had helped in every way she could, and she was very popular also.
Throughout the winter they had enjoyed the city thoroughly, and the change of life it afforded, but signs of spring did wonderful things to the hearts of the country-bred women. A restlessness began on bright February days, calmed during March storms and attacked full force in April. When neither could bear it any longer they were forced to discuss the matter and admit they were growing ill with pure homesickness. They decided to keep the city house during the summer, but to go back to the farm to live just as soon as school closed.
So Mrs. Comstock would prepare breakfast and lunch and then slip away to the farm to make up beds in her ploughed garden, plant seeds, trim and tend her flowers, and prepare the cabin for occupancy. Then she would go home and make the evening as cheerful as possible for Elnora; in these days she lived only for the girl.
Both of them were glad when the last of May came and the schools closed. They packed the books and clothing they wished to take into a wagon and walked across the fields to the old cabin. As they approached it, Mrs. Comstock said to Elnora, "You are sure you won't be lonely here?"
Elnora knew what she really meant.
"Quite sure," she said. "For a time last fall I was glad to be away, but that all wore out with the winter. Spring made me homesick as I could be. I can scarcely wait until we get back again."
So they began that summer just as they had begun all others—with work. But both of them took a new joy in everything, and the violin sang by the hour in the twilight.