CHAPTER XII
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 moth'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!"