A Girl of the Limberlost. Stratton-Porter Gene
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CHAPTER IV
WHEREIN THE SINTONS ARE DISAPPOINTED, AND MRS. COMSTOCK LEARNS THAT SHE CAN LAUGH
With the first streak of red above the Limberlost Margaret Sinton was busy with the gingham and the intricate paper pattern she had purchased. Wesley cooked the breakfast and worked until he thought Elnora would be gone, then he started to bring her mother.
“Now you be mighty careful,” cautioned Margaret. “I don't know how she will take it.”
“I don't either,” said Wesley philosophically, “but she's got to take it some way. That dress has to be finished by school time in the morning.”
Wesley had not slept well that night. He had been so busy framing diplomatic speeches to make to Mrs. Comstock that sleep had little chance with him. Every step nearer to her he approached his position seemed less enviable. By the time he reached the front gate and started down the walk between the rows of asters and lady slippers he was perspiring, and every plausible and convincing speech had fled his brain. Mrs. Comstock helped him. She met him at the door.
“Good morning,” she said. “Did Margaret send you for something?”
“Yes,” said Wesley. “She's got a job that's too big for her, and she wants you to help.”
“Of course I will,” said Mrs. Comstock. It was no one's affair how lonely the previous day had been, or how the endless hours of the present would drag. “What is she doing in such a rush?”
Now was his chance.
“She's making a dress for Elnora,” answered, Wesley. He saw Mrs. Comstock's form straighten, and her face harden, so he continued hastily. “You see Elnora has been helping us at harvest time, butchering, and with unexpected visitors for years. We've made out that she's saved us a considerable sum, and as she wouldn't ever touch any pay for anything, we just went to town and got a few clothes we thought would fix her up a little for the high school. We want to get a dress done to-day mighty bad, but Margaret is slow about sewing, and she never can finish alone, so I came after you.”
“And it's such a simple little matter, so dead easy; and all so between old friends like, that you can't look above your boots while you explain it,” sneered Mrs. Comstock. “Wesley Sinton, what put the idea into your head that Elnora would take things bought with money, when she wouldn't take the money?”
Then Sinton's eyes came up straightly.
“Finding her on the trail last night sobbing as hard as I ever saw any one at a funeral. She wasn't complaining at all, but she's come to me all her life with her little hurts, and she couldn't hide how she'd been laughed at, twitted, and run face to face against the fact that there were books and tuition, unexpected, and nothing will ever make me believe you didn't know that, Kate Comstock.”
“If any doubts are troubling you on that subject, sure I knew it! She was so anxious to try the world, I thought I'd just let her take a few knocks and see how she liked them.”
“As if she'd ever taken anything but knocks all her life!” cried Wesley Sinton. “Kate Comstock, you are a heartless, selfish woman. You've never shown Elnora any real love in her life. If ever she finds out that thing you'll lose her, and it will serve you right.”
“She knows it now,” said Mrs. Comstock icily, “and she'll be home to-night just as usual.”
“Well, you are a brave woman if you dared put a girl of Elnora's make through what she suffered yesterday, and will suffer again to-day, and let her know you did it on purpose. I admire your nerve. But I've watched this since Elnora was born, and I got enough. Things have come to a pass where they go better for her, or I interfere.”
“As if you'd ever done anything but interfere all her life! Think I haven't watched you? Think I, with my heart raw in my breast, and too numb to resent it openly, haven't seen you and Mag Sinton trying to turn Elnora against me day after day? When did you ever tell her what her father meant to me? When did you ever try to make her see the wreck of my life, and what I've suffered? No indeed! Always it's been poor little abused Elnora, and cakes, kissing, extra clothes, and encouraging her to run to you with a pitiful mouth every time I tried to make a woman of her.”
“Kate Comstock, that's unjust,” cried Sinton. “Only last night I tried to show her the picture I saw the day she was born. I begged her to come to you and tell you pleasant what she needed, and ask you for what I happen to know you can well afford to give her.”
“I can't!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You know I can't!”
“Then get so you can!” said Wesley Sinton. “Any day you say the word you can sell six thousand worth of rare timber off this place easy. I'll see to clearing and working the fields cheap as dirt, for Elnora's sake. I'll buy you more cattle to fatten. All you've got to do is sign a lease, to pull thousands from the ground in oil, as the rest of us are doing all around you!”
“Cut down Robert's trees!” shrieked Mrs. Comstock. “Tear up his land! Cover everything with horrid, greasy oil! I'll die first.”
“You mean you'll let Elnora go like a beggar, and hurt and mortify her past bearing. I've got to the place where I tell you plain what I am going to do. Maggie and I went to town last night, and we bought what things Elnora needs most urgent to make her look a little like the rest of the high school girls. Now here it is in plain English. You can help get these things ready, and let us give them to her as we want——”
“She won't touch them!” cried Mrs. Comstock.
“Then you can pay us, and she can take them as her right——”
“I won't!”
“Then I will tell Elnora just what you are worth, what you can afford, and how much of this she owns. I'll loan her the money to buy books and decent clothes, and when she is of age she can sell her share and pay me.”
Mrs. Comstock gripped a chair-back and opened her lips, but no words came.
“And,” Sinton continued, “if she is so much like you that she won't do that, I'll go to the county seat and lay complaint against you as her guardian before the judge. I'll swear to what you are worth, and how you are raising her, and have you discharged, or have the judge appoint some man who will see that she is comfortable, educated, and decent looking!”
“You—you wouldn't!” gasped Kate Comstock.
“I won't need to, Kate!” said Sinton, his heart softening the instant the hard words were said. “You won't show it, but you do love Elnora! You can't help it! You must see how she needs things; come help us fix them, and be friends. Maggie and I couldn't live without her, and you couldn't either. You've got to love such a fine girl as she is; let it show a little!”
“You can hardly expect me to love her,” said Mrs. Comstock coldly. “But for her a man would stand back of me now, who would beat the breath out of your sneaking body for the cowardly thing with which you threaten me. After all I've suffered you'd drag me to court and compel me to tear up Robert's property. If I ever go they carry me. If they touch one tree, or put down one greasy old oil well, it will be over all I can shoot, before they begin. Now, see how quick you can clear out of here!”
“You won't come and help Maggie with the dress?”
For answer Mrs. Comstock looked around swiftly for some object on which to lay her hands. Knowing her temper, Wesley Sinton left with all the haste consistent with dignity. But he did not go home. He crossed a field, and in an hour brought another neighbour who was skilful with her needle. With sinking heart Margaret saw them coming.
“Kate is too busy to help to-day, she can't sew before to-morrow,” said Wesley cheerfully as they entered.
That