“Where could it have come from?” cried Elnora.
She shook out a petticoat, with a hand-wrought ruffle a foot deep, then an old-fashioned chemise the neck and sleeve work of which was elaborate and perfectly wrought. On the breast was pinned a note that she hastily opened.
“I was married in these,” it read, “and I had intended to be buried in them, but perhaps it would be more sensible for you to graduate and get married in them yourself, if you like. Your mother.”
“From my mother!” Wide-eyed, Elnora looked at the Bird Woman. “I never in my life saw the like. Mother does things I think I never can forgive, and when I feel hardest, she turns around and does something that makes me think she just must love me a little bit, after all. Any of the girls would give almost anything to graduate in hand-embroidered linen like that. Money can't buy such things. And they came when I was thinking she didn't care what became of me. Do you suppose she can be insane?”
“Yes,” said the Bird Woman. “Wildly insane, if she does not love you and care what becomes of you.”
Elnora arose and held the petticoat to her. “Will you look at it?” she cried. “Only imagine her not getting my dress ready, and then sending me such a petticoat as this! Ellen would pay fifty dollars for it and never blink. I suppose mother has had it all my life, and I never saw it before.”
“Go take your bath and put on those things,” said the Bird Woman. “Forget everything and be happy. She is not insane. She is embittered. She did not understand how things would be. When she saw, she came at once to provide you a dress. This is her way of saying she is sorry she did not get the other. You notice she has not spent any money, so perhaps she is quite honest in saying she has none.”
“Oh, she is honest!” said Elnora. “She wouldn't care enough to tell an untruth. She'd say just how things were, no matter what happened.”
Soon Elnora was ready for her dress. She never had looked so well as when she again headed the processional across the flower and palm decked stage of the high school auditorium. As she sat there she could have reached over and dropped a rose she carried into the seat she had occupied that September morning when she entered the high school. She spoke the few words she had to say in behalf of the class beautifully, had the tiny wink ready for Billy, and the smile and nod of recognition for Wesley and Margaret. When at last she looked into the eyes of a white-faced woman next them, she slipped a hand to her side and raised her skirt the fraction of an inch, just enough to let the embroidered edge of a petticoat show a trifle. When she saw the look of relief which flooded her mother's face, Elnora knew that forgiveness was in her heart, and that she would go home in the morning.
It was late afternoon before she arrived, and a dray followed with a load of packages. Mrs. Comstock was overwhelmed. She sat half dazed and made Elnora show her each costly and beautiful or simple and useful gift, tell her carefully what it was and from where it came. She studied the faces of Elnora's particular friends. The gifts from them had to be set in a group. Several times she started to speak and then stopped. At last, between her dry lips, came a harsh whisper.
“Elnora, what did you give back for these things?”
“I'll show you,” said Elnora cheerfully. “I made the same gifts for the Bird Woman, Aunt Margaret and you if you care for it. But I have to run upstairs to get it.”
When she returned she handed her mother an oblong frame, hand carved, enclosing Elnora's picture, taken by a schoolmate's camera. She wore her storm-coat and carried a dripping umbrella. From under it looked her bright face; her books and lunchbox were on her arm, and across the bottom of the frame was carved, “Your Country Classmate.”
Then she offered another frame.
“I am strong on frames,” she said. “They seemed to be the best I could do without money. I located the maple and the black walnut myself, in a little corner that had been overlooked between the river and the ditch. They didn't seem to belong to any one so I just took them. Uncle Wesley said it was all right, and he cut and hauled them for me. I gave the mill half of each tree for sawing and curing the remainder. Then I gave the wood-carver half of that for making my frames. A photographer gave me a lot of spoiled plates, and I boiled off the emulsion, and took the specimens I framed from my stuff. The man said the white frames were worth three and a half, and the black ones five. I exchanged those little framed pictures for the photographs of the others. For presents, I gave each one of my crowd one like this, only a different moth. The Bird Woman gave me the birch bark. She got it up north last summer.”
Elnora handed her mother a handsome black-walnut frame a foot and a half wide by two long. It finished a small, shallow glass-covered box of birch bark, to the bottom of which clung a big night moth with delicate pale green wings and long exquisite trailers.
“So you see I did not have to be ashamed of my gifts,” said Elnora. “I made them myself and raised and mounted the moths.”
“Moth, you call it,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I've seen a few of the things before.”
“They are numerous around us every June night, or at least they used to be,” said Elnora. “I've sold hundreds of them, with butterflies, dragonflies, and other specimens. Now, I must put away these and get to work, for it is almost June and there are a few more I want dreadfully. If I find them I will be paid some money for which I have been working.”
She was afraid to say college at that time. She thought it would be better to wait a few days and see if an opportunity would not come when it would work in more naturally. Besides, unless she could secure the Yellow Emperor she needed to complete her collection, she could not talk college until she was of age, for she would have no money.
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