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Polly. I don't quite understand it. Mother is a great home body herself, but she did succeed in making Polly strictly ornamental.”
“Does Tom Levering need a 'strictly ornamental' girl?”
“You are too matter of fact! Too 'strictly' material. He needs a darling girl who will love him plenty, and Polly is that.”
“Well, then, does the Limberlost need a 'strictly ornamental' girl?”
“No!” cried Philip. “You are ornament enough for the Limberlost. I have changed my mind. I don't want Polly here. She would not enjoy catching moths, or anything we do.”
“She might,” persisted Elnora. “You are her brother, and surely you care for these things.”
“The argument does not hold,” said Philip. “Polly and I do not like the same things when we are at home, but we are very fond of each other. The member of my family who would go crazy about this is my father. I wish he could come, if only for a week. I'd send for him, but he is tied up in preparing some papers for a great corporation case this summer. He likes the country. It was his vote that brought me here.”
Philip leaned back against the arbour, watching the grosbeak as it hunted food between a tomato vine and a day lily. Elnora set him to making labels, and when he finished them he asked permission to write a letter. He took no pains to conceal his page, and from where she sat opposite him, Elnora could not look his way without reading: “My dearest Edith.” He wrote busily for a time and then sat staring across the garden.
“Have you run out of material so quickly?” asked Elnora.
“That's about it,” said Philip. “I have said that I am getting well as rapidly as possible, that the air is fine, the folks at Uncle Doc's all well, and entirely too good to me; that I am spending most of my time in the country helping catch moths for a collection, which is splendid exercise; now I can't think of another thing that will be interesting.”
There was a burst of exquisite notes in the maple.
“Put in the grosbeak,” suggested Elnora. “Tell her you are so friendly with him you feed him potato bugs.”
Philip lowered the pen to the sheet, bent forward, then hesitated.
“Blest if I do!” he cried. “She'd think a grosbeak was a depraved person with a large nose. She'd never dream that it was a black-robed lover, with a breast of snow and a crimson heart. She doesn't care for hungry babies and potato bugs. I shall write that to father. He will find it delightful.”
Elnora deftly picked up a moth, pinned it and placed its wings. She straightened the antennae, drew each leg into position and set it in perfectly lifelike manner. As she lifted her work to see if she had it right, she glanced at Philip. He was still frowning and hesitating over the paper.
“I dare you to let me dictate a couple of paragraphs.”
“Done!” cried Philip. “Go slowly enough that I can write it.”
Elnora laughed gleefully.
“I am writing this,” she began, “in an old grape arbour in the country, near a log cabin where I had my dinner. From where I sit I can see directly into the home of the next-door neighbour on the west. His name is R. B. Grosbeak. From all I have seen of him, he is a gentleman of the old school; the oldest school there is, no doubt. He always wears a black suit and cap and a white vest, decorated with one large red heart, which I think must be the emblem of some ancient order. I have been here a number of times, and I never have seen him wear anything else, or his wife appear in other than a brown dress with touches of white.
“It has appealed to me at times that she was a shade neglectful of her home duties, but he does not seem to feel that way. He cheerfully stays in the sitting-room, while she is away having a good time, and sings while he cares for the four small children. I must tell you about his music. I am sure he never saw inside a conservatory. I think he merely picked up what he knows by ear and without vocal training, but there is a tenderness in his tones, a depth of pure melody, that I never have heard surpassed. It may be that I think more of his music than that of some other good vocalists hereabout, because I see more of him and appreciate his devotion to his home life.
“I just had an encounter with him at the west fence, and induced him to carry a small gift to his children. When I see the perfect harmony in which he lives, and the depth of content he and the brown lady find in life, I am almost persuaded to— Now this is going to be poetry,” said Elnora. “Move your pen over here and begin with a quote and a cap.”
Philip's face had been an interesting study while he wrote her sentences. Now he gravely set the pen where she indicated, and Elnora dictated—
“Buy a nice little home in the country,
And settle down there for life.”
“That's the truth!” cried Philip. “It's as big a temptation as I ever had. Go on!”
“That's all,” said Elnora. “You can finish. The moths are done. I am going hunting for whatever I can find for the grades.”
“Wait a minute,” begged Philip. “I am going, too.”
“No. You stay with mother and finish your letter.”
“It is done. I couldn't add anything to that.”
“Very well! Sign your name and come on. But I forgot to tell you all the bargain. Maybe you won't send the letter when you hear that. The remainder is that you show me the reply to my part of it.”
“Oh, that's easy! I wouldn't have the slightest objection to showing you the whole letter.”
He signed his name, folded the sheets and slipped them into his pocket.
“Where are we going and what do we take?”
“Will you go, mother?” asked Elnora.
“I have a little work that should be done,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Could you spare me? Where do you want to go?”
“We will go down to Aunt Margaret's and see her a few minutes and get Billy. We will be back in time for supper.”
Mrs. Comstock smiled as she watched them down the road. What a splendid-looking pair of young creatures they were! How finely proportioned, how full of vitality! Then her face grew troubled as she saw them in earnest conversation. Just as she was wishing she had not trusted her precious girl with so much of a stranger, she saw Elnora stoop to lift a branch and peer under. The mother grew content. Elnora was thinking only of her work. She was to be trusted utterly.
CHAPTER XVI
WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST SINGS FOR PHILIP, AND THE TALKING TREES TELL GREAT SECRETS
A few days later Philip handed Elnora a sheet of paper and she read: “In your condition I should think the moth hunting and life at that cabin would be very good for you, but for any sake keep away from that Grosbeak person, and don't come home with your head full of granger ideas. No doubt he has a remarkable voice, but I can't bear untrained singers, and don't you get the idea that a June song is perennial. You are not hearing the music he will make when the four babies have the scarlet fever and the measles, and the gadding wife leaves him at home to care for them then. Poor soul, I pity her! How she exists where rampant cows bellow at you, frogs croak, mosquitoes consume you, the butter goes to oil in summer and bricks in winter, while the pump freezes every day, and there is no earthly amusement, and no society! Poor things! Can't you influence him to move? No wonder she gads when she has a chance! I should die. If you are thinking of settling in the country, think also of a woman who is satisfied with white and brown to accompany you! Brown! Of all deadly colours! I should go mad in brown.”
Elnora laughed while she read. Her face was dimpling, as she returned the sheet. “Who's ahead?” she asked.