A Girl of the Limberlost

a fire, and put on the kettle for breakfast. Then she climbed the narrow stairs to the attic she had occupied since a very small child, and dre

your going for an hour

Elnora. "I am perfectly positive I shall not find them lying be

te so badly. She never again would have to face all of it for the first time. There had been times yesterday when she had prayed to be hidd

and found a book-store. There she asked the prices of the list of books that she needed, and learned that six dollars would not quite supply them. She anxiously inquired for second-hand books, but was told that the only way to secure them was from the last year

or the store was rapidly filling with school chil

Please let me take them, and I will pay for them on Friday, or retur

aid. When he came back Elnora k

cognize your name. You are not a customer of o

think. Should she stay from school that day and canvass the homes appearing to belong to the wealthy, and try to sell beds of wild ferns, as she had suggested to Wesley Sinton? What would she dare ask for bringing in and planting a clump o

window in big black lette

AE CASES, BUTTERFLIES, MOTHS, INDIAN RELICS OF

shier's desk with both hands to br

cocoons, butterflies,

wered the cashier. "H

ot know if they are

her," said the cashier. "D

ra. "Would you t

fter eight,"

nora caught the infection. She would see the Bird Woman at noon. Algebra came first, and that professor was kind. Perhaps she could slip to the superintendent and ask him for a book for the next lesson, and at

or of mathematics standing in the door of his recitati

or you," he said, and E

" she qu

ofessor Henley

to the room and closed

that a pupil had betrayed in class that she had expected her books

breathe

e too fine a mathematician to fall behind for want of supplies. So I telephoned one of our Sophomores to bring her last year's books this morning. I am so

th hands for the books, and said never a word. The professor was silent also. At

r tuition quarterly. You need not bother about the fir

sp of relief must have reac

ll you how beautiful

so near-sighted, that he peered at his p

that; for which reason I shall appreciate it all the mor

emory, if need be. She could prove that clothes were not all. If the Bird Woman did not want any of the many different kinds of specimens she had collected, she was quite sure now she could sell ferns, nuts, and a great many things. Then, too, a girl made a place for her that morning, a

out the specimens first and then she would walk to the suburbs somewhere and eat a few bites. She dropped

n at home?" she a

lunch," was

a girl from the Limberlost abo

ed the girl. "Orders are to bring any on

overmantel and closets of peculiar china filling the corners. At a bare table of oak, yellow as gold, sat a woman El

oor. If it is moths I hope you have hundreds. I've been very busy all summer and unable to collect, an

ce it's so cleared I dare go around the edge

unlike any she ever before had tasted, salad that seemed to be made of many familiar

me. I've only gathered. I always loved everything outdoors, so I made friends and playmates of them. When

. Then because the girl could not eat until she learned about the

p and he showed me the box he had fixed for Freckles, and gave me the key. There were some books and things

at fly mostly in June nig

reddish markings, pale blue-green, yel

low?'" asked the Bird Woman so qu

ous voice. "A reddish, yellowish brown, with can

?" It was the sam

of them didn't hatch, and some of the caterpillars die

erfect?" cried

gone, and all their legs an

an solemnly. "If you have a hundred of them, they are worth a hundr

not pinned right

erence. I know how to soften them so that I can put them in

" said Elnora. "I couldn't carry many for fear of b

ut with some specimen boxes, and a price list, and see what you ha

told Freckles about me, and Freckles told him to give me all he left. He said for me to stick to the swamp and

me?" asked the B

nted to know more and more, and pretty soon I grew desperate, just as Freckles did. But I am better off than he was, for I have

she was revealing. Her eyes were fixed on a black pitcher filled with g

school and mother wouldn't consent. You see there's plenty of land, but father was drowned when I was a baby, and mother and I can't make money as men do. The taxes ar

cabin at the northwest end of t

said

tory about it, now. You enter

es

s rath

ad!" echo

d Woman

once entered a city school straight from the country

to roll down E

--?" she

"All of it. I am sure they did

that began coursing her cheek

y now?" asked

and some of the dullest worked out high positions; some of the very worst to bear have gone out, and I frequently hear from others. Now I am here, able to remember it, and mi

e board it changed to Cornstock, and for a minute I

are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose, among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite music, car

ntil she remembered how hungry she was, so she ate the

a long printed slip giving a list of graduated

ve a few and I can get more by the thousand,

the mystery, wonder, and the urge of their pure beauty, are going to force me to picture and paint our moths and put them into a book for all the world to see and know. We Limberlost people must not be

d they find a way to earn the money to buy

ia, and another in Brazil. Others I can exchange with home collectors for those of California and Canada, so you see I can use all you can raise, or find. The banker will buy stone axes, arrow points, and Indian pipes. There was a teacher from

ing a millionaire? Uncle Wesley and I have a bushel of arrow points gathered, a stack of axes,

e late," said the Bird Woma

re taken from the interior of the old black case. Not a fourth of them could be moved that night and it was almost dark when the last box was

You are going to buy the books, pay th

would she take the money to pay the taxes? If she did not tell her, how could she account for the books, and things for which she would spend it. At last she counted out what she needed for t