CHAPTER VIII
WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST TEMPTS ELNORA, AND BILLY BURIES HIS FATHER
Immediately after dinner on Sunday Wesley Sinton stopped at the
Comstock gate to ask if Elnora wanted to go to town with them. Billy
sat beside him and he did not appear as if he were on his way to
a funeral. Elnora said she had to study and could not go, but she
suggested that her mother take her place. Mrs. Comstock put on her
hat and went at once, which surprised Elnora. She did not know that
her mother was anxious for an opportunity to speak with Sinton alone.
Elnora knew why she was repeatedly cautioned not to leave their
land, if she went specimen hunting.
She studied two hours and was several lessons ahead of her classes.
There was no use to go further. She would take a walk and see if
she could gather any caterpillars or find any freshly spun cocoons.
She searched the bushes and low trees behind the garden and all
around the edge of the woods on their land, and having little success,
at last came to the road. Almost the first thorn bush she examined
yielded a Polyphemus cocoon. Elnora lifted her head with the instinct
of a hunter on the chase, and began work. She reached the swamp
before she knew it, carrying five fine cocoons of different species
as her reward. She pushed back her hair and gazed around longingly.
A few rods inside she thought she saw cocoons on a bush, to which
she went, and found several. Sense of caution was rapidly vanishing;
she was in a fair way to forget everything and plunge into the swamp
when she thought she heard footsteps coming down the trail. She
went back, and came out almost facing Pete Corson.
That ended her difficulty. She had known him since childhood. When
she sat on the front bench of the Brushwood schoolhouse, Pete had
been one of the big boys at the back of the room. He had been rough
and wild, but she never had been afraid of him, and often he had
given her pretty things from the swamp.
"What luck!" she cried. "I promised mother I would
not go inside the swamp alone, and will you look at the cocoons
I've found! There are more just screaming for me to come get them,
because the leaves will fall with the first frost, and then the
jays and crows will begin to tear them open. I haven't much time,
since I'm going to school. You will go with me, Pete! Please say
yes! Just a little way!"
"What are those things?" asked the man, his keen black
eyes staring at her.
"They are the cases these big caterpillars spin for winter,
and in the spring they come out great night moths, and I can sell
them. Oh, Pete, I can sell them for enough to take me through high
school and dress me so like the others that I don't look different,
and if I have very good luck I can save some for college. Pete,
please go with me?"
"Why don't you go like you always have?"
"Well, the truth is, I had a little scare," said Elnora.
"I never did mean to go alone; sometimes I sort of wandered
inside farther than I intended, chasing things. You know Duncan
gave me Freckles's books, and I have been gathering moths like he
did. Lately I found I could sell them. If I can make a complete
collection, I can get three hundred dollars for it. Three such collections
would take me almost through college, and I've four years in the
high school yet. That's a long time. I might collect them."
"Can every kind there is be found here?"
"No, not all of them, but when I get more than I need of one
kind, I can trade them with collectors farther north and west, so
I can complete sets. It's the only way I see to earn the money.
Look what I have already. Big gray Cecropias come from this kind;
brown Polyphemus from that, and green Lunas from these. You aren't
working on Sunday. Go with me only an hour, Pete!"
The man looked at her narrowly. She was young, wholesome, and beautiful.
She was innocent, intensely in earnest, and she needed the money,
he knew that.
"You didn't tell me what scared you," he said.
"Oh, I thought I did! Why you know I had Freckles's box packed
full of moths and specimens, and one evening I sold some to the
Bird Woman. Next morning I found a note telling me it wasn't safe
to go inside the swamp. That sort of scared me. I think I'll go
alone, rather than miss the chance, but I'd be so happy if you would
take care of me. Then I could go anywhere I chose, because if I
mired you could pull me out. You will take care of me, Pete?"
"Yes, I'll take care of you," promised Pete Corson.
"Goody!" said Elnora. "Let's start quick! And Pete,
you look at these closely, and when you are hunting or going along
the road, if one dangles under your nose, you cut off the little
twig and save it for me, will you?"
"Yes, I'll save you all I see," promised Pete. He pushed
back his hat and followed Elnora. She plunged fearlessly among bushes,
over underbrush, and across dead logs. One minute she was crying
wildly, that here was a big one, the next she was reaching for a
limb above her head or on her knees overturning dead leaves under
a hickory or oak tree, or working aside black muck with her bare
hands as she searched for buried pupae cases. For the first hour
Pete bent back bushes and followed, carrying what Elnora discovered.
Then he found one.
"Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?" he asked
bashfully, as he presented a wild cherry twig.
"Oh Pete, that's a Promethea! I didn't even hope to find one."
"What's the bird like?" asked Pete.
"Almost black wings," said Elnora, "with clay-coloured
edges, and the most wonderful wine-coloured flush over the under
side if it's a male, and stronger wine above and below if it's a
female. Oh, aren't I happy!"
"How would it do to make what you have into a bunch that we
could leave here, and come back for them?"
"That would be all right."
Relieved of his load Pete began work. First, he narrowly examined
the cocoons Elnora had found. He questioned her as to what other
kinds would be like. He began to use the eyes of a trained woodman
and hunter in her behalf. He saw several so easily, and moved through
the forest so softly, that Elnora forgot the moths in watching him.
Presently she was carrying the specimens, and he was making the
trips of investigation to see which was a cocoon and which a curled
leaf, or he was on his knees digging around stumps. As he worked
he kept asking questions. What kind of logs were best to look beside,
what trees were pupae cases most likely to be under; on what bushes
did caterpillars spin most frequently? Time passed, as it always
does when one's occupation is absorbing.
When the Sintons took Mrs. Comstock home, they stopped to see Elnora.
She was not there. Mrs. Comstock called at the edge of her woods
and received no reply. Then Wesley turned and drove back to the
Limberlost. He left Margaret and Mrs. Comstock holding the team
and entertaining Billy, while he entered the swamp.
Elnora and Pete had made a wide trail behind them. Before Sinton
had thought of calling, he heard voices and approached with some
caution. Soon he saw Elnora, her flushed face beaming as she bent
with an armload of twigs and branches and talked to a kneeling man.
"Now go cautiously!" she was saying. "I am just sure
we will find an Imperialis here. It's their very kind of a place.
There! What did I tell you! Isn't that splendid? Oh, I am so glad
you came with me!"
Wesley stood staring in speechless astonishment, for the man had
arisen, brushed the dirt from his hands, and held out to Elnora
a small shining dark pupa case. As his face came into view Sinton
almost cried out, for he was the one man of all others Wesley knew
with whom he most feared for Elnora's safety. She had him on his
knees digging pupae cases for her from the swamp.
"Elnora!" called Sinton. "Elnora!"
"Oh, Uncle Wesley!" cried the girl. "See what luck
we've had! I know we have a dozen and a half cocoons and we have
three pupae cases. It's much harder to get the cases because you
have to dig for them, and you can't see where to look. But Pete
is fine at it! He's found three, and he says he will keep watch
beside the roads, and through the woods while he hunts. Isn't that
splendid of him? Uncle Wesley, there is a college over there on
the western edge of the swamp. Look closely, and you can see the
great dome up among the clouds."
"I should say you have had luck," said Wesley, striving
to make his voice natural. "But I thought you were not coming
to the swamp?"
"Well, I wasn't," said Elnora, "but I couldn't find
many anywhere else, honest, I couldn't, and just as soon as I came
to the edge I began to see them here. I kept my promise. I didn't
come in alone. Pete came with me. He's so strong, he isn't afraid
of anything, and he's perfectly splendid to locate cocoons! He's
found half of these. Come on, Pete, it's getting dark now, and we
must go."
They started toward the trail, Pete carrying the cocoons. He left
them at the case, while Elnora and Wesley went on to the carriage
together.
"Elnora Comstock, what does this mean?" demanded her mother.
"It's all right, one of the neighbours was with her, and she
got several dollars' worth of stuff," interposed Wesley.
"You oughter seen my pa," shouted Billy. "He was
ist all whited out, and he laid as still as anything. They put him
away deep in the ground."
"Billy!" breathed Margaret in a prolonged groan.
"Jimmy and Belle are going to be together in a nice place.
They are coming to see me, and Snap is right down here by the wheel.
Here, Snap! My, but he'll be tickled to get something to eat! He's
'most twisted as me. They get new clothes, and all they want to
eat, too, but they'll miss me. They couldn't have got along without
me. I took care of them. I had a lot of things give to me 'cause
I was the littlest, and I always divided with them. But they won't
need me now."
When she left the carriage Mrs. Comstock gravely shook hands with
Billy. "Remember," she said to him, "I love boys,
and I love dogs. Whenever you don't have a good time up there, take
your dog and come right down and be my little boy. We will just
have loads of fun. You should hear the whistles I can make. If you
aren't treated right you come straight to me."
Billy wagged his head sagely. "You ist bet I will!" he
said.
"Mother, how could you?" asked Elnora as they walked up
the path.
"How could I, missy? You better ask how couldn't I? I just
couldn't! Not for enough to pay, my road tax! Not for enough to
pay the road tax, and the dredge tax, too!"
"Aunt Margaret always has been lovely to me, and I don't think
it's fair to worry her."
"I choose to be lovely to Billy, and let her sweat out her
own worries just as she has me, these sixteen years. There is nothing
in all this world so good for people as taking a dose of their own
medicine. The difference is that I am honest. I just say in plain
English, `if they don't treat you right, come to me.' They have
only said it in actions and inferences. I want to teach Mag Sinton
how her own doses taste, but she begins to sputter before I fairly
get the spoon to her lips. Just you wait!"
"When I think what I owe her----" began Elnora.
"Well, thank goodness, I don't owe her anything, and so I'm
perfectly free to do what I choose. Come on, and help me get supper.
I'm hungry as Billy!"
Margaret Sinton rocked slowly back and forth in her chair. On her
breast lay Billy's red head, one hand clutched her dress front with
spasmodic grip, even after he was unconscious.
"You mustn't begin that, Margaret," said Sinton. "He's
too heavy. And it's bad for him. He's better off to lie down and
go to sleep alone."
"He's very light, Wesley. He jumps and quivers so. He has to
be stronger than he is now, before he will sleep soundly."