CHAPTER XXI
Wherein Philip Ammon Returns to the Limberlost; and Elnora Studies the Situation
"We must be thinking about supper, mother," said Elnora, as she set the wings of a Cecropia with great care. "It seems as if I can't get enough to eat, or enough of being at home. I enjoyed that city house. I don't believe I could have gotten through my work if I had been compelled to walk back and forth. I thought at first I never wanted to come here again. Now, I feel as if I could not live anywhere else."
"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock, "there's someone coming down the road."
"Coming here, do you think?"
"Yes, coming here, I suspect."
Elnora glanced quickly at her mother and then turned to the road as Philip Ammon reached the gate.
"Careful, mother!" the girl instantly warned. "If you change your treatment of him a hair's breadth, he will suspect. Come with me to meet him."
She dropped her work and sprang up.
"Well, of all the delightful surprises!" she cried.
She was a trifle thinner than during the previous summer. On her face there was a more mature, patient look, but the sun struck her bare head with the same ray of red gold. She wore one of the old blue gingham dresses, open at the throat and rolled to the elbows. Mrs. Comstock did not look at all the same woman, but Ammon saw only Elnora; heard only her greeting. He caught both hands where she offered but one.
"Elnora," he cried, "if you were engaged to me, and we were at a ball, among hundreds, where I offended you very much, and didn't even know I had done anything, and if I asked you before all of them to allow me to explain, to forgive me, to wait, would your face grow distorted and unfamiliar with anger? Would you drop my ring on the floor and insult me repeatedly? Oh, Elnora, would you?"
Elnora's big eyes seemed to leap, while her face grew very white. She wrenched away her hands.
"Hush, Phil! Hush!" she protested. "That fever has you again! You are dreadfully ill. You don't know what you are saying."
"I am sleepless and exhausted; I'm heartsick; but I am well as I ever was. Answer me, Elnora, would you?"
"Answer nothing!" cried Mrs. Comstock. If Wesley Sinton had been speaking to her just then he would have called her "Kate." "Answer nothing! Hang your coat there on your nail, Phil, and come split some kindling. Elnora, clean away that stuff, and set the table. Can't you see the boy is starved and tired? He's come home to rest and get a decent meal. Come on, Phil!"
Mrs. Comstock marched away, and Ammon hung his coat in its old place and followed. Out of sight and hearing she turned on him.
"Do you call yourself a man or a hound?" she flared.
"I beg your pardon!" stammered Philip Ammon.
"I should think you would!" she ejaculated. "I'll admit you did the square thing and was a man last summer, though I'd like it better if you'd faced up and told me you were promised; but to come back here babying, and take hold of Elnora like that, and talk that way because you have had a fuss with your girl, I don't tolerate. Split that kindling and I'll get your supper, and then you best go. I won't have you working on Elnora's big heart, because you have quarrelled with some one else. You'll have it patched up in a week and be gone again, so you can go right away."
"Mrs. Comstock, I came here to ask Elnora to marry me."
"The more fool you, then!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "This time yesterday you were engaged to another woman, no doubt. Now, for some little flare-up you come racing here to use Elnora as a tool to spite the other girl. A week of sane living, and you will be sorry and ready to go back to Chicago, or, if you really are man enough to be sure of yourself, she will come to claim you. She has her rights. An engagement of years is a serious matter, and not broken for a whim. If you don't go, she'll come. Then, when you patch up your affairs and go sailing away together, where does my girl come in?"
"I am a lawyer, Mrs. Comstock," said Ammon. "It •appeals to me as beneath your ordinary sense of justice to decide a case without hearing the evidence. It is due me that you hear me first."
"Hear your side!" flashed Mrs. Comstock. "I'd a heap sight rather hear the girl!"
"I wish to my soul that you had heard and seen her last night, Mrs. Comstock," said Ammon. "Then, my way would be clear. I never even thought of coming here today. I'll admit I would have come in time, but not for many months. My father sent me."
"Your father sent you!" repeated Mrs. Comstock. "Why?"
"Father, mother, and Polly were present last night. They and all my friends saw me insulted and disgraced in the worst exhibition of uncontrolled temper any of us ever witnessed. All of them knew it was the end. Father liked what I had told him of Elnora, and he advised me to come here, so I came. If she does not want me, I can leave instantly, but, oh, I hoped she would understand!"
"You people are not splitting wood," called Elnora from the back door.
"Oh, yes, we are!" answered Mrs. Comstock. "You set out the things for biscuit, and lay the table." She turned again to Ammon. "I know considerable about your father," she said. "I have met your uncle's family frequently this winter. I've heard your Aunt Anna say that she didn't at all like Miss Carr, and that she and all your family secretly hoped that something would happen to prevent your marrying her. That chimes right in with your saying that your father sent you here. I guess you better speak your piece."
Ammon gave his version of the previous night.
"Do you believe me?" he finished.
"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock.
"May I stay?"
"Oh, it looks all right for you, but what about her?"
"Nothing, so far as I am concerned. Her plans were all made to start to Europe to-day. I suspect she is on the way by this time. Elnora is very sensible, Mrs. Comstock. Hadn't you better let her decide this?"
"The final decision rests with her, of course," admitted Mrs. Comstock. "But look you one thing! She's all I have. As Solomon says, 'She is the one child, the only child of her mother.' I've suffered enough in this world that I fight against any suffering which threatens her. So far as I know you've always been a man, and you may stay. But if you bring tears and heartache to her, don't have the assurance to think I'll bear it tamely. I'll get right up and fight like a catamount, if things go wrong for Elnora!"
"I have no doubt but you will," replied Ammon, "and I don't blame you in the least if you do. I have the utmost devotion to offer Elnora, a good home, fair social position, and my family will love her dearly. Think it over. I know it is sudden, but my father advised it."
"Yes, I reckon he did!" said Mrs. Comstock dryly. "I guess instead of me being the catamount, you had the genuine article up in Chicago, masquerading in peacock feathers, and posing as a fine lady, until her time came to scratch. Human nature seems to be pretty much the same the world over. But I'd give a pretty to know that secret thing you say you don't, that set her to raving over your just catching a moth for Elnora. You might get that crock of strawberries in the spring house."
They prepared and ate supper. Afterward they sat in the arbour and talked, or Elnora played until time for Ammon to go.
"Will you walk to the gate with me?" he asked Elnora as he arose.
"Not to-night," she answered lightly. "Come early in the morning if you like, and we will go over to Sleepy Snake Creek and hunt moths and gather dandelions for dinner."
Ammon leaned toward her. "May I tell you to-morrow why I came?" he asked.
"I think not," replied Elnora. "The fact is, I don't care why you came. It is enough for me that we are your very good friends, and that in trouble you have found us a refuge. I fancy we had better live a week or two before you say anything. There is a possibility what you have to say may change in that length of time."
"It will not change one iota!" cried Ammon.
"Then it will have the grace of that much age to give it some small touch of flavour," said the girl. "Come early In the morning."
She lifted the violin and began to play a dainty fairy dance.
"Well, bless my soul!" softly ejaculated the astounded Mrs. Comstock. "To think I was worrying for fear you couldn't take care of yourself!"
Elnora laughed as she played.
"Shall I tell you what he said?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
"Nope! I don't want to hear it!" said Elnora. "He is only six hours from Chicago. I'll give her a week to find him and fix it up, if he stays that long. If she don't put in an appearance then, he can tell me what he wants to say, and I'll take my time to think it over. Time in plenty, too! There are three of us in this, and one has got to be left with a sore heart for life. If the decision rests with me I propose to be very sure that it is the one who deserves such hard luck. Let's go to bed."
The next morning Ammon came early, dressed in the outing clothing he had worn the previous summer, and aside from a slight paleness seemed very much the same as when he left. Elnora met him on the old footing, and for a week life went on exactly as it had the previous summer. Mrs. Comstock made mental notes and watched in silence. She could see that Elnora was on a strain, though she hoped Ammon would not. The girl grew restless as the week drew to a close. Once when the gate clicked she suddenly lost colour and moved nervously. Billy came down the walk.
Ammon leaned toward Mrs. Comstock and said, "I am expressly forbidden to speak to Elnora as I would like just now. Would you mind telling her for me that I had a letter from my father this morning saying that Miss Carr is on her way to Europe for the summer?"
"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock promptly, "I have just heard that Carr woman is on her way to Europe, and I wish to my gracious stars she'd stay there!"
Philip Ammon shouted, but Elnora arose hastily and went to meet Billy. They came into the arbour together and after speaking to Mrs. Comstock and Ammon, Billy said, "Uncle Wesley and I found something funny, and we thought you'd like to see."
"I don't know what I should do without you and Uncle Wesley to help me," said Elnora. "What have you found now?"
"Something I couldn't bring. You have to come to it. I tried to get one and I killed it. They are a kind of insecty things, and they got a long tail that is three fine hairs. They stick those hairs right into the hard bark of trees, and if you pull, the hairs stay fast and it kills the bug."
"We will come at once," laughed Elnora. "I know what they are, and I can use some in my work."
"Billy, have you been crying?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
Billy lifted a chastened face. "Yes, ma'am," he replied. "This has been the worst day."
"What's the matter with the day?"
"The day is all right," admitted Billy. "I mean every single thing has gone wrong with me."
"Now, that is too bad!" sympathized Mrs. Comstock. 'Tell me about it."
"Began early this morning," said Billy. "All Snap's fault, too."
"Now, what has poor Snap been doing?" demanded Mrs. Comstock, her eyes beginning to twinkle.
"Digging for woodchucks, just like he always does. He gets up at two o'clock to dig for them. He was coming in from the woods all tired and covered thick with dirt. I was going to the barn with the pail of water for Uncle Wesley to use in milking. I had to set down the pail to shut the gate so the chickens wouldn't get into the flower beds, and old Snap stuck his dirty nose into the water and began to lap it down. I knew Uncle Wesley wouldn't use that, so I had to go 'way back to the cistern for more, and it pumps awful hard. Made me mad, so I threw the water on Snap."
"Well, what of it?"
"Nothing, if he'd stood still. But it scared him awful, and when he's afraid he just goes a-humping for Aunt Margaret. When he got right up against her he stiffened out and gave a big shake. You oughter seen the nice blue dress she had put on to go to Onabasha!"
Mrs. Comstock and Ammon laughed, but Elnora put her arms around the boy. "Oh, Billy!" she cried. "That was too bad!"
"She got up early and ironed that dress to wear because it was cool. Then, when it was all dirty, she wouldn't go, and she wanted to real bad." Billy wiped his eyes. "That ain't all, either," he added.
"We'd like to know about it, Billy," suggested Mrs. Comstock, struggling with her face.
"'Cos she couldn't go to the city, she's most worked herself to death, to-day. She's done all the dirty, old hard jobs she could find. She's fixing her grape juice now."
"Sure!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "When a woman is disappointed she always works like a dog to gain sympathy!"
"Well, Uncle Wesley and I are sympathizing all we know how, without her working so. I've squeezed until I almost busted to get the juice out from the seeds and skins. That's the hard part. Now, she has to strain it through white flannel and seal it in bottles, and it's good for sick folks. Most wish I'd get sick myself, so I could have a glass. It's so good!"
Elnora glanced swiftly at her mother.
"I worked so hard," continued Billy, "that she said if I would throw the leavings in the woods, then I could come for you to see about the bugs. Do you want to go?"
"We will all go," said Mrs. Comstock. "I am mightily interested in those bugs myself."
From afar commotion could be seen at the Sinton home. Wesley and Margaret were running around wildly and peculiar sounds filled the air.
"What's the trouble?" asked Ammon, hurrying to Wesley.
"Cholera!" groaned Sinton. "My hogs are dying like flies."
Margaret was softly crying. "Wesley, can't I fix something hot? Can't we do anything? It means several hundred dollars and our winter meat."
"I never saw stock taken so suddenly and so hard," said Wesley. "I have 'phoned for the veterinary to come as soon as he can get here."
All of them hurried to the feeding pen into which the pigs seemed to be gathering from the woods. Among the common stock were big white beasts of pedigree which were Wesley's pride at county fairs. Several of these rolled on their backs, pawing the air feebly and emitting little squeaks. A huge Berkshire sat on his haunches slowly shaking his head, the water dropping from his eyes, until he, too, rolled over with faint grunts. A pair crossing the yard on wavering legs collided, and attacked each other in anger, only to fall, so weak they scarcely could squeal. A fine snowy Plymouth Rock rooster after several attempts, flew to the fence, balanced with great effort, wildly flapped his wings and started to emit a guttural crow, but broke off and fell sprawling among the pigs, too helpless to stand.
"Did you ever see such a dreadful sight?" sobbed Margaret.
Billy climbed on the fence, took one long look and turned an astounded face to Wesley.
"Why them pigs is drunk!" he cried. "They act just like my pa!"
Wesley turned on Margaret.
"Where did you put the leavings from that grape juice?" he demanded.
"I sent Billy to throw it in the woods."
"Billy" began Wesley.
"Threw it just where she told me to," cried Billy. "But some of the pigs came by there coming into the pen, and some were close in the fence corners."
"Did they eat it?" demanded Wesley.
"They just chanked into it," replied Billy graphically. "They pushed, and squealed, and fought over it. You couldn't blame 'em! It was the best stuff I ever tasted!"
Faint squealing, punctuated by feeble crows filled the long pause which ensued.
"Margaret," said Welsey, "run, 'phone that doctor he won't be needed. Billy, take Elnora and Mr. Ammon to see the bugs. Katharine, suppose you help me a little."
Wesley took the clothes basket from the back porch and started in the direction of the cellar. Margaret returned from the telephone.
"I just caught him," she said. "There's that much saved. Why, Wesley, what are you going to do?"
"You go sit on the front porch a little while," said Wesley. "You will feel better if you don't see this."
"Wesley," cried Margaret aghast. "Some of that wine is ten years old. There's days and days of hard work in it, and I couldn't say how much sugar. Dr. Ammon keeps people alive with it when nothing else will stay on their stomachs."
"Let 'em die, then!" said Wesley. "You heard the boy, didn't you?"
"It's a cold process. There's not a particle of fermentation about it!"
"Not a particle of fermentation! Great day, Margaret! Look at those pigs!"
Margaret took a long look. "Leave me a few bottles for mince-meat," she wavered.
"Not a smell for any cause on this earth! You heard the boy! He shan't say, when he grows to manhood, that he learned to like it here!"
Wesley made a clean sweep, Mrs. Comstock cheerfully assisting. Then they all went to the woods to see and learn about the wonderful insects. The day ended with a big supper at Sintons', and then they went down to the Comstock cabin for a concert. Elnora played beautifully that night. When the Sintons left she kissed Billy with particular tenderness. She was so moved that she was kinder to Ammon than she had intended to be, and Elnora as an antidote to a disappointed lover was a decided success in any mood.
However strong the attractions of Edith Carr had been, once the bond was finally broken, Philip Ammon could not help realizing that Elnora was the superior woman, and that he was fortunate to have escaped, just when he regarded his ties strongest. Every day, while working with Elnora, he saw more to admire. He grew very thankful that he was free to try to win her, and impatient to justify himself to her.
Elnora did not evince the slightest haste to hear what he had to say, but waited the week she had set, in spite of Philip's hourly manifest impatience. When she did consent to listen, Philip realized before he had talked five minutes that she was putting herself in Edith Carr's place, and judging him from what the other girl's stand-point would be. That was so disconcerting, he did not plead his cause nearly so well as he had hoped, for when he ceased Elnora sat in silence.
"You are my judge," he said at last. "What is your verdict?"
"If I could hear her speak from her heart as I just have heard you, then I could decide," answered Elnora.
"She is on the ocean," said Philip. "She went because she knew she was wholly in the wrong. She had nothing to say, or she would have remained."
"That sounds plausible," reasoned Elnora, "but it is pretty hard to find a woman in an affair that involves her heart, with nothing at all to say. I fancy if I could meet her just now she would say several things. I should love to hear them. If I could talk with her three minutes, I could tell what answer to make you."
"Don't you believe me, Elnora?"
"Unquestioningly," answered Elnora. "But I would believe her also. If only I could meet her I soon would know."
"I don't see how that is to be accomplished," said Ammon, "but I am perfectly willing. There is no reason why you should not meet her, except that she probably would lose her temper and insult you."
"Not to any extent," said Elnora calmly. "I have a tongue of my own, while I am not without some small sense of personal values."
Ammon glanced into her face and began to laugh. Very different of facial formation and colouring, Elnora at times closely resembled her mother. She joined in Ammon's laugh a little ruefully.
"The point is this," she said. "Some one is going to get hurt, most dreadfully. If the decision as to who it shall be rests with me, I must know it is the right one. Of course, no one ever hinted it to you, but you are a very attractive man, Philip. You are mighty good to look at, and you have a trained, refined mind, that makes you most interesting. For years Edith Carr has felt that you were hers. She has lived expecting to assume the closest relations of life with you. She has thought of you as hers, and you were hers. Now, how is she going to change? I have been thinking—thinking deep and long, Phil. If I were in her place, I simply could not give you up, unless you had made yourself unworthy of love. Undoubtedly, you never seemed so desirable to her as just now, when she is told she can't have you. What I think is that she will come to claim you yet."
"You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman's power to throw away a man and pick him up at leisure," said Ammon with some warmth. "She publicly and repeatedly cast me off. I accepted her decision as publicly as it was made. You have done all your thinking from a wrong viewpoint. You seem to have an idea that it lies with you to decide what I shall do, that if you say the word, I shall return to Edith. Get that thought out of your head! Now, and for all time to come, she is a matter of indifference to me. She killed all feeling in my heart for her so completely that I do not even dread meeting her. I could see her coming down the walk now without the quickening of a heartbeat. I can meet her as casually as any woman I ever met, and liked least of all women.
"If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be sure the feeling would not die. As it is, she has deadened me into a creature of indifference. So you just revise your viewpoint a little, Elnora. Cease thinking it is for you to decide what I shall do, and that I will obey you. I make my own decisions in reference to any woman, save you. The question you are to decide is whether I may remain here, associating with you as I did last summer; but with the difference that it is understood that I am free; that it is my intention to care for you all I please, to make you return my feeling for you if I can. There is just one question for you to decide, and it is not triangular. It is between us. May I remain? May I love you? Will you give me the chance to prove what I think of you?"
"You speak very plainly," said Elnora.
"This is the time to speak plainly," said Philip Ammon. "There is no use in allowing you to go on threshing out a problem which does not exist. If you do not want me here, say so and I will go. Of course, I warn you before I start that I will come back. I won't yield without the stiffest fight it is in me to make. I will have all you have to give any man if I can get it. But drop thinking it lies in your power to send me back to Edith Carr. If she were the last woman in the world, and I the last man, I'd jump off the planet before I would give her further opportunity to exercise her temper on me. Narrow this to us, Elnora. Will you take the place she vacated? Will you take the heart she threw away? I'd give my right hand and not flinch if I could offer you my life, free from any contact with hers, but that is not possible. I can't undo things which are done. I can only profit by experience and build better in the future."
"I don't see how you can be sure of yourself," said Elnora. "I don't see how I could be sure of you. You loved her first, you never can care for me anything like that. Always I'd have to be afraid you were thinking of her and regretting."
"Folly!" cried Ammon. "Regretting what? That I was not married to a woman who was liable to rave at me any time or place, without my being conscious of having given offence? A man does relish that! I am likely to pine for more!"
"You'd be thinking she'd learned a lesson. You would think it wouldn't happen again."
"No, I wouldn't be 'thinking,'" said Ammon. "I'd be everlastingly sure! I wouldn't risk what I went through that night again, not to save my life! Just you and me, Elnora. Decide for us."
"I can't!" cried Elnora. "I am afraid!"
"Very well," said Ammon. "We will wait until you feel that you can. Wait until fear vanishes. Just decide now whether you would rather have me go for a few months, or remain with you. Which shall it be, Elnora?"
"You can never love me as you did her," wailed Elnora.
"I am happy to say I cannot," replied Ammon. "I've cut my matrimonial teeth. I'm cured of wanting to swell in society. I've gotten over being proud of a woman for her looks alone. I have no further use for lavishing myself on a beautiful, elegantly dressed creature who thinks only of self. I have come to the surface. I have learned that I am just a common man. I admire beauty and beautiful clothing just as much as I ever did; but, first, I want an understanding, deep as the lowest recess of my soul, with the woman I marry. I want to work for you, to plan for you, to build you a home with every comfort, to give you all good things I can, to shield you from every evil. I want to interpose my body between yours and fire, flood, or famine. I want to give you everything; but I hate the idea of getting nothing at all on which I can depend in return. Edith Carr had only good looks to offer, and when anger overtook her, beauty went out like a snuffed candle.
"I want you to love me. I want some consideration. I even crave respect. I've kept myself clean. So far as I know how to be, I am honest and scrupulous. It wouldn't hurt me to feel that you took some interest in these things. Pretty fierce temptations strike a man, every few days, in this world. I can keep decent, for a woman who cares for decency, but when I do, I'd like to have the fact recognized, by just enough of a show of appreciation that I could see it. I am tired of this one-sided business. It has made me selfish. After this, I want to get a little in return for what I give. Elnora, you have love, tenderness, and honest appreciation of the finest in life. Take what I offer, and give what I ask."
"You do not ask much," said Elnora.
"As for not loving you as I did Edith," continued Ammon, "as I said before, I hope not! I have a newer and a better idea of loving. The feeling I offer you was inspired by you. It is a Limberlost product. It is as much bigger, cleaner, and more wholesome than any feeling I ever had for Edith Carr, as you are bigger than she, when you stand before your classes and in calm dignity explain the marvels of the Almighty, while she stands on a ballroom floor and gives way to uncontrolled temper. Ye gods, Elnora, If you could look into my soul, you would see it leap and rejoice over my escape! Perhaps it isn't decent, but it's human, and I'm only a common human being. I'm the gladdest thing alive that I'm free! I would turn somersaults and yell if I dared. What an escape! Just snatched out of it with a clean conscience, when I was most besotted. Stop straining after Edith Carr's viewpoint and take a look from mine. Put yourself in my place and try to study out how I feel.
"I am so happy I get religious over it. Fifty times a day I catch myself whispering, 'My soul is escaped!' As for you, take all the time you want. If you had rather be alone, I'll take the next train and stay away as long as I can bear it, but I'll come back. You can be most sure of that. Straight as your pigeons to their loft, I'll come back to you, Elnora. Shall I go?"
"Oh, what's the use to be extravagant?" murmured Elnora.