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!”