proached colorless and with such flam- |
| ing eves that Mrs. Comstock shrank
| back.
“What's the matter with Elnora's
face?" demanded Margaret.
Mrs. Comstock made no reply.
“You struck her, did you?
Pa., January 24, 1913.
the Limberlost.
A Girl of “1 thought you wasn’t blind!”
— | “I have been for twenty long years
[Continued from page 6, Col. 4.1 now, Kate Comstock,” said Margaret
tell her carefully what it was and Sinton, “but my eyes are open at last.
from where it came. She studied the | What I see is that I've done you no
faces of Elnora’s particular friends in- ' good and Elnora a big wrong. I had
tently. The gifts from them had to | an idea that it wouid kill you to know.
be selected and set in a group. Several | but I guess you are tough enough to
times she started to speak and then ' gtand anything. Kill or cure, you get
stopped. At last between her dry lips it now. You! The woman who don’
came a harsh whisper. . pretend to love her only child, and all
“Elnora, what did you give back for | for a fool idea about r man who
-
-
these things?” !| wasn't worth his salt!”
Elnora handed her mother a band- |
some'black walnut frame a foot and a ' “Go right on!" she said.
half wide by two long. It finished a | yourself. It's the last thing you'll
birch bark, to the bottom of which = wrpen I'll make a tidy job of it,”
clung a big night moth with delicate , gqijd Margaret. “You'll not touch me.
pale green wings and long, exquisite
trailers. A more beautiful thing would ' quagmire out there so close he went
have been difficult to imagine. | in, he wanted to keep you from seeing i
“I must get to work, for it is almost | where he was coming from. He'd |
June, and there are a few more 1 want | peep to see Elvira Carney. They bad |
dreadfully,” said Elnora. “When 1get | plans to go to a dance that night"— |
them I will be peid some money for | «Close your lips!” sald Mrs. Com- |
Mrs. Comstock picked up a hoe. i
| When Robert Comstock shaved that |
which I have worked a long time.” | stock In a voice of deadly quiet.
| “You kmow I wouldn't dare open
CHAPTER XVL | them if I wes not telling you the truth.
Wherein Margaret Sinton Reveals a | It was hot in the woods, and I stopped
Secret. | at Carney's as I passed for a drink
LNORA, bring me the towel. | Hvis Deliidden old Motes heard
oft op | me, aud she was so crazy for some one
E Se Tied ew. Comatoch, ; to talk with I stepped in a minute. I
of some kind!" | saw Robert come down the path. EI
Elnora ran into the sitting room and vira saw him, too, and she ran out of |
thrust the heavy kitchen towel into her | the house to head him off. He brought |
mother's hand. Mrs. Comstock swung | Der his violin and told her to get ready
open the screen door and struck at
some object. Elnora screamed wildly.
“Don’t, mother, don't!”
Mrs. Comstock struck again. Elnora
caught her arm.
“It’s the one I want! It's worth a lot
of money! Don’t! Oh, you shall not!”
“Shan't, missy?’ blazed Mrs. Cow- |
stock.
me?”
“When did you get to bossing
The hand that held the screen swept |
a half circle and stopped at Elnora’s |
cheek. She staggered with the blow, '
and across her face, pale with excite
ment, a red mark rose rapidly. The |
screen slammed shut, throwing the
creature on the floor before them. In-
stantly Mrs, Comstock’s foot crushed
it. Elnora stepped back. Excepting the
red mark, her face was very white.
“That was the last moth 1 needed.”
she said, “to complete a collection
worth $300. You've ruined it before
my eyes!”
“If I had known it was a moth”
Mrs. Comstock wavered.
“They are what have paid for books,
tuition and clothes for the last four
years. They are what I could have
started on to college. You've crusheu
the last one I needed before my face.
You never have made any pretense of
loving me. At last I'll be equally frank
with you. I hate you! You are a sel-
fish, wicked woman! 1 hate you!”
Elnora turned, went through the |
kitchen and out the back door. She
followed the garden path to the gate
and walked toward the swamp a short
distance when reaction overtook her.
She dropped on the ground and leaned
against a big log. When a little child,
desperate as now, she had tried to die
by holding her breath.
As Elnora left the room Mrs. Com-
stock took one step after her.
“You little huzzy!” she gasped.
But Elnora was gone. Her mother
stood staring, .
“She never did lie to me,” she mut-
tered. “I guess it was a moth and the
only one she needed to get $300, she
said. 1 wish I hadn’t been so fast.
Pshaw! She can find another. Maybe
moths are like snakes, where there's
one there's two.”
Mrs. Comstock took the broom and
swept the moth out of the door. So it
wus from creatures like that Elnora
had got her school money. In one sick-
ening sweep there rushed into the
heart of the woman a full realization
of the width of the gulf which sepa-
rated her from her child.
“We are nearer strangers with each
other than we are with any of the
neighbors,” she muttered.
So one of the Almighty's most deli-
is not going,” called Mrs. Comstock.
“You must be mistaken,” said Mar-
garet. "1 was going on purpose for
her. She asked me to take her. I had
no errand. Where is she?”
“1 will call her,” said Mrs. Comstock.
She followed the path again
1s
| and meet him in the woods with it that |
| night and tiey wouid go to a dance.
| She took it nud 1d it in the little loft
| to the weilhouse and promised she'd
' go.”
!
i
| story.
nora over three years ago. She's been
| playing it ever since. | won't see her
slighted and abused another day on
account of u mau who would have bro-
ken your heart if he had lived. He was
| one of those men who couldn't trust
| himself, and so no woman was safe
with him. Now, will you drop griev-
ing over him and de Elnora justice?”
Mrs, Comstock grippcd the hoe tight-
. er, and, turaing, she went down the
{ walk and started across the woods to
| the home oo. Elvira Carney. With
| averted head she passed the pool, stead- |
i lly pursuing her way. Elvira Carney,
| hanging towels across the back fence, |
saw her coming and went toward the
| gate to meet her.
| had dreaded that visit. Mrs, Comstock’s
face and hair were so white that her
, dark eyes seemed burned into their
; setting. Silently she stared at the wo- -
| man before her a long time.
ble of coming,” she said at last. “I see
| you are guilty as sin.”
| “What bas Mag Sinton been telling
| you?’ panted the miserable woman,
, gripping the fence.
| “The truth,” answered Mrs. Com-
| stock succinctly. “Guilt is in every
line of your face, in your eyes, all over
your wretched body.”
“If you knew what I've suffered!”
| “Suffered?’ jeered Mrs, Comstock.
| “That's interesting. And pray, what
have you suffered 7’
“All the neighbors have suspected
and been down on me. I ain't had :
friend. I've always felt guilty of his»
death! I've seen him go down a thou-
sand times, plain as ever you did.
Many’s the night I've stood on the
bank of that pool and listened
d I tried to throw myself in
from hearing you, but I didn’t |
knew God would send me to
forever, but I'd better done fit.
he has set the burning on my
very hour it is slowly eat-
out of me. The doctor
§RESERES
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Comstock exhaled a long breath.
grip on the hoe relaxed, and her
lifted to towering height.
know or care when | came
what I did,” she said. “But
is beginning to clear. If the
your soul has come to a head
on your body, it looks as
‘t need any of my
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| “Are you done?’ demanded Mrs.
| “No. I am going to tell you the whole !
You don't spare Elnora any-
| thing. I shan't spare you. I went to
Elvira, told her what 1 knew and made |
her give me Comstock's violin for El |
dress its windows.
ing America how to dress its girls in
i “vine olothing, which is most un-
Twenty years she
“I might have saved myself the trou- |
TER
+
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never could wait until the girl came
and delivered her judgment. At last
| in an effort to get nearer to her, Mrs.
Comstock climbed the stairs and stood
very unfamiliar.
strange to her.
filled It with packages and bundles.
The walls were covered with cocoons.
moths and dragon flies were pinned
about.
Under the bed she could see a half
dozen large white boxes. She did not
know what they contained. She pulled
out one and lifted the lid. The bottom
was covered with a sheet of thin cork,
and on long pins sticking in it were
dozens cf great, velvet winged moths.
“Empty | Each one was labeled, always there
were two of a kind, in many cases
small shallow glass covered box of ever do.” !
four, showing under and upper wings
of both male and female. They were
of every color and shape.
Mrs. Comstock carefully closed and
replaced the boxes and again stood
looking around the room. This time
her eyes rested on some books she did
not remember having seen before, so
she picked up one and found that it
was a moth book. She glanced over
the first pages and was soon eagerly
reading. When the text reached the
classification of species she laid it
down. took up another and read its in-
troductory chapters. Then she found
some papers and studied them.
She went downstairs thinking deep-
ly. Being unable to sit still and hav-
ing nothing else to do, she glanced at
the clock and prepared supper. She
went out and sat on the front door-
step watching night creep all around
her. She started eagerly as the gate
creaked, but it was only Wesley Sin-
ton coming down the walk.
“Katharine, Margaret and Elnora
passed where I was working this after-
noon, and Margaret got out of the car-
riage and called me to the fence. She
told me what she had done. I've come
to say to you that I am sorry. She has
heard me threaten to do it a good
many times, but I never would have
got it done. I'd give a good deal if |
oould undo it, but I can’t, so I've come
to tell you how sorry 1 am.”
“You've got something to be sorry
for,” said Mrs, Comstock, “but likely
we ain't thinking of the same thing.
It hurts me less to know the truth than
to live In ignorance. Now, if Elnora
will forgive me we will take a new
start and see what we can make out of
what is left of life. If she won't then
it will be my time to learn what suf
fering really means.”
[Continued next week.)
America is teaching Europe how to
Europe is teach-
atetnl,
——
FEWER STORKS IN ALSACE
System of Registration Is Being Tried |
to Learn About Migratory
Habits,
Every year the number of storks
to be seen in Alsace becomes less Ot
the four nests perched on the big
chimneys on the old roofs of Strass-
burg, only one has been occupied this
year.
in many of the villages the great
migrators have ceased for a long time
to relieve the landscape, and it seems
only a question of time when the siors
in Alsace will be a memory. Various
are the causes assigned for this de
sertion—the draining of the marshes,
the multiplication of telephone and
telegraph wires and the smoke from
factory chimneys.
in Germany for the better study ol
&torks there has been created a sort
of service in connection with the Edu-
cation Department which tends to se.
up an “etat civil” for esch bird, or,
in other words, to register them aiter
the manner which obtains for citizens |
in France. |
Each bird is captured where possi- |
ble and a metatlic disk affixed to its |
leg, and German officials, wherever
the birds are believed to migrate, have |
instructions to send to the department |
any information they can gather con- |
cerning storks who are German sub- |
jects. (Possibly this labeling may |
have something to do with the scarc- |
ity.) By this system of registration |
the authorities have learned some- |
thing of the migratory habits of the
bird; for instance, one was found dead |
at the Cape of Good Hope whose place
of origin was eastern Prussia. i
A point of interest relative to the
scarcity of the stork has been brought |
under the notice of the German au-
thorities by a doctor at Port EKliz:-
beth, who suggests that they have
been poisoned through eating gra:
hoppers or locusts which have becn
killed by arsenic. A correspondent,
however, of an Aisuce-Lorraine joui-
nal hints that the cause is to be found
nearer at home. |
Jack—I bet that fellow dented the
ice all right.
Jim—That's all right;
Molar the dentist.
that’s Bill
A Recipe.
However dark and drear the moon,
If work's to do, begin it, |
And though the day seem quite forlorn, !
You'll find some gladness in it i
Perpetual Worth, |
“Why was it you never married
again, Aunt Sallie?” inquired Mrs.
McClane of an old colored woman in |
West Virginia, |
“'Deed, Miss Ellie,” replied the old
woman, earnestly, “dat dald nigger's |
wuth moah to me dan a live one. |
gits a pension.”—Lippincott’s. jo
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If you are thinking of buy-
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you would do well to lock
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marks them as bargains.
orders of the stomach and other organs |
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blood, heals “weak lungs” and bronchial
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hundred who use it.
—Don’t read an out-of-date paper. Get
all the news in the WATCHMAN.
Don’t take pills unless you have to. If
do need a laxative medicine, use the
ind that will not make you a victim to
he pill habit—Dr. Pierce's Pleasant Pel-
ets.
Subscribe for the WATCHMAN.
——
Fa
--
FIPFs FE
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Bi
sai
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Ea a dv a
oa
Wi
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The Telephone “Right of Way”
There is $his difference between Party Line
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—t
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No one on a Party Line can be assured that the
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The Bell Telephone Co. or Pa.
W. S. MALLALIEU, Local Manager,
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ig
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