CHAPTER XXI
WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON RETURNS TO THE LIMBERLOST, AND ELNORA STUDIES
THE SITUATION
We must be thinking about supper, mother," said Elnora, while
she set the wings of a Cecropia with much care. "It seems as
if I can't get enough to eat, or enough of being at home. I enjoyed
that city house. I don't believe I could have done my work if I
had been compelled to walk back and forth. I thought at first I
never wanted to come here again. Now, I feel as if I could not live
anywhere else."
"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock, "there's some one coming
down the road."
"Coming here, do you think?"
"Yes, coming here, I suspect."
Elnora glanced quickly at her mother and then turned to the road
as Philip Ammon reached the gate.
"Careful, mother!" the girl instantly warned. "If
you change your treatment of him a hair's breadth, he will suspect.
Come with me to meet him."
She dropped her work and sprang up.
"Well, of all the delightful surprises!" she cried.
She was a trifle thinner than during the previous summer. On her
face there was a more mature, patient look, but the sun struck her
bare head with the same ray of red gold. She wore one of the old
blue gingham dresses, open at the throat and rolled to the elbows.
Mrs. Comstock did not appear at all the same woman, but Philip saw
only Elnora; heard only her greeting. He caught both hands where
she offered but one.
"Elnora," he cried, "if you were engaged to me, and
we were at a ball, among hundreds, where I offended you very much,
and didn't even know I had done anything, and if I asked you before
all of them to allow me to explain, to forgive me, to wait, would
your face grow distorted and unfamiliar with anger? Would you drop
my ring on the floor and insult me repeatedly? Oh Elnora, would
you?"
Elnora's big eyes seemed to leap, while her face grew very white.
She drew away her hands.
"Hush, Phil! Hush!" she protested. "That fever has
you again! You are dreadfully ill. You don't know what you are saying."
"I am sleepless and exhausted; I'm heartsick; but I am well
as I ever was. Answer me, Elnora, would you?"
"Answer nothing!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "Answer nothing!
Hang your coat there on your nail, Phil, and come split some kindling.
Elnora, clean away that stuff, and set the table. Can't you see
the boy is starved and tired? He's come home to rest and eat a decent
meal. Come on, Phil!"
Mrs. Comstock marched away, and Philip hung his coat in its old
place and followed. Out of sight and hearing she turned on him.
"Do you call yourself a man or a hound?" she flared.
"I beg your pardon----" stammered Philip Ammon.
"I should think you would!" she ejaculated. "I'll
admit you did the square thing and was a man last summer, though
I'd liked it better if you'd faced up and told me you were promised;
but to come back here babying, and take hold of Elnora like that,
and talk that way because you have had a fuss with your girl, I
don't tolerate. Split that kindling and I'll get your supper, and
then you better go. I won't have you working on Elnora's big heart,
because you have quarrelled with some one else. You'll have it patched
up in a week and be gone again, so you can go right away."
"Mrs. Comstock, I came to ask Elnora to marry me."
"The more fool you, then!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "This
time yesterday you were engaged to another woman, no doubt. Now,
for some little flare-up you come racing here to use Elnora as a
tool to spite the other girl. A week of sane living, and you will
be sorry and ready to go back to Chicago, or, if you really are
man enough to be sure of yourself, she will come to claim you. She
has her rights. An engagement of years is a serious matter, and
not broken for a whim. If you don't go, she'll come. Then, when
you patch up your affairs and go sailing away together, where does
my girl come in?"
"I am a lawyer, Mrs. Comstock," said Philip. "It
appeals to me as beneath your ordinary sense of justice to decide
a case without hearing the evidence. It is due me that you hear
me first."
"Hear your side!" flashed Mrs. Comstock. "I'd a heap
sight rather hear the girl!"
"I wish to my soul that you had heard and seen her last night,
Mrs. Comstock," said Ammon. "Then, my way would be clear.
I never even thought of coming here to-day. I'll admit I would have
come in time, but not for many months. My father sent me."
"Your father sent you! Why?"
"Father, mother, and Polly were present last night. They, and
all my friends, saw me insulted and disgraced in the worst exhibition
of uncontrolled temper any of us ever witnessed. All of them knew
it was the end. Father liked what I had told him of Elnora, and
he advised me to come here, so I came. If she does not want me,
I can leave instantly, but, oh I hoped she would understand!"
"You people are not splitting wood," called Elnora.
"Oh yes we are!" answered Mrs. Comstock. "You set
out the things for biscuit, and lay the table." She turned
again to Philip. "I know considerable about your father,"
she said. "I have met your Uncle's family frequently this winter.
I've heard your Aunt Anna say that she didn't at all like Miss Carr,
and that she and all your family secretly hoped that something would
happen to prevent your marrying her. That chimes right in with your
saying that your father sent you here. I guess you better speak
your piece."
Philip gave his version of the previous night.
"Do you believe me?" he finished.
"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock.
"May I stay?"
"Oh, it looks all right for you, but what about her?"
"Nothing, so far as I am concerned. Her plans were all made
to start to Europe to-day. I suspect she is on the way by this time.
Elnora is very sensible, Mrs. Comstock. Hadn't you better let her
decide this?"
"The final decision rests with her, of course," admitted
Mrs. Comstock. "But look you one thing! She's all I have. As
Solomon says, `she is the one child, the only child of her mother.'
I've suffered enough in this world that I fight against any suffering
which threatens her. So far as I know you've always been a man,
and you may stay. But if you bring tears and heartache to her, don't
have the assurance to think I'll bear it tamely. I'll get right
up and fight like a catamount, if things go wrong for Elnora!"
"I have no doubt but you will," replied Philip, "and
I don't blame you in the least if you do. I have the utmost devotion
to offer Elnora, a good home, fair social position, and my family
will love her dearly. Think it over. I know it is sudden, but my
father advised it."
"Yes, I reckon he did!" said Mrs. Comstock dryly. "I
guess instead of me being the catamount, you had the genuine article
up in Chicago, masquerading in peacock feathers, and posing as a
fine lady, until her time came to scratch. Human nature seems to
be the same the world over. But I'd give a pretty to know that secret
thing you say you don't, that set her raving over your just catching
a moth for Elnora. You might get that crock of strawberries in the
spring house."
They prepared and ate supper. Afterward they sat in the arbour and
talked, or Elnora played until time for Philip to go.
"Will you walk to the gate with me?" he asked Elnora as
he arose.
"Not to-night," she answered lightly. "Come early
in the morning if you like, and we will go over to Sleepy Snake
Creek and hunt moths and gather dandelions for dinner."
Philip leaned toward her. "May I tell you to-morrow why I came?"
he asked.
"I think not," replied Elnora. "The fact is, I don't
care why you came. It is enough for me that we are your very good
friends, and that in trouble, you have found us a refuge. I fancy
we had better live a week or two before you say anything. There
is a possibility that what you have to say may change in that length
of time.
"It will not change one iota!" cried Philip.
"Then it will have the grace of that much age to give it some
small touch of flavour," said the girl. "Come early in
the morning."
She lifted the violin and began to play.
"Well bless my soul!" ejaculated the astounded Mrs. Comstock.
"To think I was worrying for fear you couldn't take care of
yourself!"
Elnora laughed while she played.
"Shall I tell you what he said?"
"Nope! I don't want to hear it!" said Elnora. "He
is only six hours from Chicago. I'll give her a week to find him
and fix it up, if he stays that long. If she doesn't put in an appearance
then, he can tell me what he wants to say, and I'll take my time
to think it over. Time in plenty, too! There are three of us in
this, and one must be left with a sore heart for life. If the decision
rests with me I propose to be very sure that it is the one who deserves
such hard luck."
The next morning Philip came early, dressed in the outing clothing
he had worn the previous summer, and aside from a slight paleness
seemed very much the same as when he left. Elnora met him on the
old footing, and for a week life went on exactly as it had the previous
summer. Mrs. Comstock made mental notes and watched in silence.
She could see that Elnora was on a strain, though she hoped Philip
would not. The girl grew restless as the week drew to a close. Once
when the gate clicked she suddenly lost colour and moved nervously.
Billy came down the walk.
Philip leaned toward Mrs. Comstock and said: "I am expressly
forbidden to speak to Elnora as I would like. Would you mind telling
her for me that I had a letter from my father this morning saying
that Miss Carr is on her way to Europe for the summer?"
"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock promptly, "I have just
heard that Carr woman is on her way to Europe, and I wish to my
gracious stars she'd stay there!"
Philip Ammon shouted, but Elnora arose hastily and went to meet
Billy. They came into the arbour together and after speaking to
Mrs. Comstock and Philip, Billy said: "Uncle Wesley and I found
something funny, and we thought you'd like to see."
"I don't know what I should do without you and Uncle Wesley
to help me," said Elnora. "What have you found now?"
"Something I couldn't bring. You have to come to it. I tried
to get one and I killed it. They are a kind of insecty things, and
they got a long tail that is three fine hairs. They stick those
hairs right into the hard bark of trees, and if you pull, the hairs
stay fast and it kills the bug."
"We will come at once," laughed Elnora. "I know what
they are, and I can use some in my work."
"Billy, have you been crying?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
Billy lifted a chastened face. "Yes, ma'am," he replied.
"This has been the worst day."
"What's the matter with the day?"
"The day is all right," admitted Billy. "I mean every
single thing has gone wrong with me."
"Now that is too bad!" sympathized Mrs. Comstock.
"Began early this morning," said Billy. "All Snap's
fault, too."
"What has poor Snap been doing?" demanded Mrs. Comstock,
her eyes beginning to twinkle.
"Digging for woodchucks, like he always does. He gets up at
two o'clock to dig for them. He was coming in from the woods all
tired and covered thick with dirt. I was going to the barn with
the pail of water for Uncle Wesley to use in milking. I had to set
down the pail to shut the gate so the chickens wouldn't get into
the flower beds, and old Snap stuck his dirty nose into the water
and began to lap it down. I knew Uncle Wesley wouldn't use that,
so I had to go 'way back to the cistern for more, and it pumps awful
hard. Made me mad, so I threw the water on Snap."
"Well, what of it?"
"Nothing, if he'd stood still. But it scared him awful, and
when he's afraid he goes a-humping for Aunt Margaret. When he got
right up against her he stiffened out and gave a big shake. You
oughter seen the nice blue dress she had put on to go to Onabasha!"
Mrs. Comstock and Philip laughed, but Elnora put her arms around
the boy. "Oh Billy!" she cried. "That was too bad!"
"She got up early and ironed that dress to wear because it
was cool. Then, when it was all dirty, she wouldn't go, and she
wanted to real bad." Billy wiped his eyes. "That ain't
all, either," he added.
"We'd like to know about it, Billy," suggested Mrs. Comstock,
struggling with her face.
"Cos she couldn't go to the city, she's most worked herself
to death. She's done all the dirty, hard jobs she could find. She's
fixing her grape juice now."
"Sure!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "When a woman is disappointed
she always works like a dog to gain sympathy!"
"Well, Uncle Wesley and I are sympathizing all we know how,
without her working so. I've squeezed until I almost busted to get
the juice out from the seeds and skins. That's the hard part. Now,
she has to strain it through white flannel and seal it in bottles,
and it's good for sick folks. Most wish I'd get sick myself, so
I could have a glass. It's so good!"
Elnora glanced swiftly at her mother.
"I worked so hard," continued Billy, "that she said
if I would throw the leavings in the woods, then I could come after
you to see about the bugs. Do you want to go?"
"We will all go," said Mrs. Comstock. "I am mightily
interested in those bugs myself."
From afar commotion could be seen at the Sinton home. Wesley and
Margaret were running around wildly and peculiar sounds filled the
air.
"What's the trouble?" asked Philip, hurrying to Wesley.
"Cholera!" groaned Sinton. "My hogs are dying like
flies."
Margaret was softly crying. "Wesley, can't I fix something
hot? Can't we do anything? It means several hundred dollars and
our winter meat."
"I never saw stock taken so suddenly and so hard," said
Wesley. "I have 'phoned for the veterinary to come as soon
as he can get here."
All of them hurried to the feeding pen into which the pigs seemed
to be gathering from the woods. Among the common stock were big
white beasts of pedigree which were Wesley's pride at county fairs.
Several of these rolled on their backs, pawing the air feebly and
emitting little squeaks. A huge Berkshire sat on his haunches, slowly
shaking his head, the water dropping from his eyes, until he, too,
rolled over with faint grunts. A pair crossing the yard on wavering
legs collided, and attacked each other in anger, only to fall, so
weak they scarcely could squeal. A fine snowy Plymouth Rock rooster,
after several attempts, flew to the fence, balanced with great effort,
wildly flapped his wings and started a guttural crow, but fell sprawling
among the pigs, too helpless to stand.
"Did you ever see such a dreadful sight?" sobbed Margaret.
Billy climbed on the fence, took one long look and turned an astounded
face to Wesley.
"Why them pigs is drunk!" he cried. "They act just
like my pa!"
Wesley turned to Margaret.
"Where did you put the leavings from that grape juice?"
he demanded.
"I sent Billy to throw it in the woods."
"Billy----" began Wesley.
"Threw it just where she told me to," cried Billy. But
some of the pigs came by there coming into the pen, and some were
close in the fence corners."
"Did they eat it?" demanded Wesley.
"They just chanked into it," replied Billy graphically.
"They pushed, and squealed, and fought over it. You couldn't
blame 'em! It was the best stuff I ever tasted!"
"Margaret," said Wesley, "run 'phone that doctor
he won't be needed. Billy, take Elnora and Mr. Ammon to see the
bugs. Katharine, suppose you help me a minute."
Wesley took the clothes basket from the back porch and started in
the direction of the cellar. Margaret returned from the telephone.
"I just caught him," she said. "There's that much
saved. Why Wesley, what are you going to do?"
"You go sit on the front porch a little while," said Wesley.
"You will feel better if you don't see this."
"Wesley," cried Margaret aghast. "Some of that wine
is ten years old. There are days and days of hard work in it, and
I couldn't say how much sugar. Dr. Ammon keeps people alive with
it when nothing else will stay on their stomachs."
"Let 'em die, then!" said Wesley. "You heard the
boy, didn't you?"
"It's a cold process. There's not a particle of fermentation
about it."
"Not a particle of fermentation! Great day, Margaret! Look
at those pigs!"
Margaret took a long look. "Leave me a few bottles for mince-meat,"
she wavered.
"Not a smell for any use on this earth! You heard the boy!
He shan't say, when he grows to manhood, that he learned to like
it here!"
Wesley threw away the wine, Mrs. Comstock cheerfully assisting.
Then they walked to the woods to see and learn about the wonderful
insects. The day ended with a big supper at Sintons', and then they
went to the Comstock cabin for a concert. Elnora played beautifully
that night. When the Sintons left she kissed Billy with particular
tenderness. She was so moved that she was kinder to Philip than
she had intended to be, and Elnora as an antidote to a disappointed
lover was a decided success in any mood.
However strong the attractions of Edith Carr had been, once the
bond was finally broken, Philip Ammon could not help realizing that
Elnora was the superior woman, and that he was fortunate to have
escaped, when he regarded his ties strongest. Every day, while working
with Elnora, he saw more to admire. He grew very thankful that he
was free to try to win her, and impatient to justify himself to
her.
Elnora did not evince the slightest haste to hear what he had to
say, but waited the week she had set, in spite of Philip's hourly
manifest impatience. When she did consent to listen, Philip felt
before he had talked five minutes, that she was putting herself
in Edith Carr's place, and judging him from what the other girl's
standpoint would be. That was so disconcerting, he did not plead
his cause nearly so well as he had hoped, for when he ceased Elnora
sat in silence.
"You are my judge," he said at last. "What is your
verdict?"
"If I could hear her speak from her heart as I just have heard
you, then I could decide," answered Elnora.
"She is on the ocean," said Philip. "She went because
she knew she was wholly in the wrong. She had nothing to say, or
she would have remained."
"That sounds plausible," reasoned Elnora, "but it
is pretty difficult to find a woman in an affair that involves her
heart with nothing at all to say. I fancy if I could meet her, she
would say several things. I should love to hear them. If I could
talk with her three minutes, I could tell what answer to make you."
"Don't you believe me, Elnora?"
"Unquestioningly," answered Elnora. "But I would
believe her also. If only I could meet her I soon would know."
"I don't see how that is to be accomplished," said Philip,
"but I am perfectly willing. There is no reason why you should
not meet her, except that she probably would lose her temper and
insult you."
"Not to any extent," said Elnora calmly. "I have
a tongue of my own, while I am not without some small sense of personal
values."
Philip glanced at her and began to laugh. Very different of facial
formation and colouring, Elnora at times closely resembled her mother.
She joined in his laugh ruefully.
"The point is this," she said. "Some one is going
to be hurt, most dreadfully. If the decision as to whom it shall
be rests with me, I must know it is the right one. Of course, no
one ever hinted it to you, but you are a very attractive man, Philip.
You are mighty good to look at, and you have a trained, refined
mind, that makes you most interesting. For years Edith Carr has
felt that you were hers. Now, how is she going to change? I have
been thinking--thinking deep and long, Phil. If I were in her place,
I simply could not give you up, unless you had made yourself unworthy
of love. Undoubtedly, you never seemed so desirable to her as just
now, when she is told she can't have you. What I think is that she
will come to claim you yet."
"You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman's power to
throw away a man and pick him up at pleasure," said Philip
with some warmth. "She publicly and repeatedly cast me off.
I accepted her decision as publicly as it was made. You have done
all your thinking from a wrong viewpoint. You seem to have an idea
that it lies with you to decide what I shall do, that if you say
the word, I shall return to Edith. Put that thought out of your
head! Now, and for all time to come, she is a matter of indifference
to me. She killed all feeling in my heart for her so completely
that I do not even dread meeting her.
"If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be sure
the feeling would not die. As it is, she has deadened me into a
creature of indifference. So you just revise your viewpoint a little,
Elnora. Cease thinking it is for you to decide what I shall do,
and that I will obey you. I make my own decisions in reference to
any woman, save you. The question you are to decide is whether I
may remain here, associating with you as I did last summer; but
with the difference that it is understood that I am free; that it
is my intention to care for you all I please, to make you return
my feeling for you if I can. There is just one question for you
to decide, and it is not triangular. It is between us. May I remain?
May I love you? Will you give me the chance to prove what I think
of you?"
"You speak very plainly," said Elnora.
"This is the time to speak plainly," said Philip Ammon.
"There is no use in allowing you to go on threshing out a problem
which does not exist. If you do not want me here, say so and I will
go. Of course, I warn you before I start, that I will come back.
I won't yield without the stiffest fight it is in me to make. But
drop thinking it lies in your power to send me back to Edith Carr.
If she were the last woman in the world, and I the last man, I'd
jump off the planet before I would give her further opportunity
to exercise her temper on me. Narrow this to us, Elnora. Will you
take the place she vacated? Will you take the heart she threw away?
I'd give my right hand and not flinch, if I could offer you my life,
free from any contact with hers, but that is not possible. I can't
undo things which are done. I can only profit by experience and
build better in the future."
"I don't see how you can be sure of yourself," said Elnora.
"I don't see how I could be sure of you. You loved her first,
you never can care for me anything like that. Always I'd have to
be afraid you were thinking of her and regretting."
"Folly!" cried Philip. "Regretting what? That I was
not married to a woman who was liable to rave at me any time or
place, without my being conscious of having given offence? A man
does relish that! I am likely to pine for more!"
"You'd be thinking she'd learned a lesson. You would think
it wouldn't happen again."
"No, I wouldn't be `thinking,'" said, Philip. "I'd
be everlastingly sure! I wouldn't risk what I went through that
night again, not to save my life! Just you and me, Elnora. Decide
for us."
"I can't!" cried Elnora. "I am afraid!"
"Very well," said Philip. "We will wait until you
feel that you can. Wait until fear vanishes. Just decide now whether
you would rather have me go for a few months, or remain with you.
Which shall it be, Elnora?"
"You can never love me as you did her," wailed Elnora.
"I am happy to say I cannot," replied he. "I've cut
my matrimonial teeth. I'm cured of wanting to swell in society.
I'm over being proud of a woman for her looks alone. I have no further
use for lavishing myself on a beautiful, elegantly dressed creature,
who thinks only of self. I have learned that I am a common man.
I admire beauty and beautiful clothing quite as much as I ever did;
but, first, I want an understanding, deep as the lowest recess of
my soul, with the woman I marry. I want to work for you, to plan
for you, to build you a home with every comfort, to give you all
good things I can, to shield you from every evil. I want to interpose
my body between yours and fire, flood, or famine. I want to give
you everything; but I hate the idea of getting nothing at all on
which I can depend in return. Edith Carr had only good looks to
offer, and when anger overtook her, beauty went out like a snuffed
candle.
"I want you to love me. I want some consideration. I even crave
respect. I've kept myself clean. So far as I know how to be, I am
honest and scrupulous. It wouldn't hurt me to feel that you took
some interest in these things. Rather fierce temptations strike
a man, every few days, in this world. I can keep decent, for a woman
who cares for decency, but when I do, I'd like to have the fact
recognized, by just enough of a show of appreciation that I could
see it. I am tired of this one- sided business. After this, I want
to get a little in return for what I give. Elnora, you have love,
tenderness, and honest appreciation of the finest in life. Take
what I offer, and give what I ask."
"You do not ask much," said Elnora.
"As for not loving you as I did Edith," continued Philip,
"as I said before, I hope not! I have a newer and a better
idea of loving. The feeling I offer you was inspired by you. It
is a Limberlost product. It is as much bigger, cleaner, and more
wholesome than any feeling I ever had for Edith Carr, as you are
bigger than she, when you stand before your classes and in calm
dignity explain the marvels of the Almighty, while she stands on
a ballroom floor, and gives way to uncontrolled temper. Ye gods,
Elnora, if you could look into my soul, you would see it leap and
rejoice over my escape! Perhaps it isn't decent, but it's human;
and I'm only a common human being. I'm the gladdest man alive that
I'm free! I would turn somersaults and yell if I dared. What an
escape! Stop straining after Edith Carr's viewpoint and take a look
from mine. Put yourself in my place and try to study out how I feel.
"I am so happy I grow religious over it. Fifty times a day
I catch myself whispering, `My soul is escaped!' As for you, take
all the time you want. If you prefer to be alone, I'll take the
next train and stay away as long as I can bear it, but I'll come
back. You can be most sure of that. Straight as your pigeons to
their loft, I'll come back to you, Elnora. Shall I go?"
"Oh, what's the use to be extravagant?" murmured Elnora.