“Yes, I did,” answered Elnora, “but I thought you were in earnest.  So did Billy, and Uncle Wesley, and Aunt Margaret.”

“Well, wasn’t I?” inquired Mrs. Comstock.

“But you just said you brought Aunt Margaret to!”

“Well, didn’t I?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“That’s the reason I am recommending more schooling!”

Elnora took her candle and went to bed.  Mrs. Comstock was feeling too good to sleep.  Twice of late she really had enjoyed herself for the first in sixteen years, and greediness for more of the same feeling crept into her blood like intoxication.  As she sat brooding alone she knew the truth.  She would have loved to have taken Billy.  She would not have minded his mischief, his chatter, or his dog.  He would have meant a distraction from herself that she greatly needed; she was even sincere about the dog.  She had intended to tell Wesley to buy her one at the very first opportunity.  Her last thought was of Billy.  She chuckled softly, for she was not saintly, and now she knew how she could even a long score with Margaret and Wesley in a manner that would fill her soul with grim satisfaction.

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.