第14章 CHAPTER III(4)

Work at your books,and before long you will hear yesterday's tormentors boasting that they were once classmates of yours.`I could a tale unfold'----!"She laughingly left the room and Elnora sat thinking,until she remembered how hungry she was,so she ate the food,drank the hot chocolate and began to feel better.

Then the Bird Woman came back and showed Elnora a long printed slip giving a list of graduated prices for moths,butterflies,and dragonflies.

"Oh,do you want them!"exulted Elnora."I have a few and I can get more by the thousand,with every colour in the world on their wings.""Yes,"said the Bird Woman,"I will buy them,also the big moth caterpillars that are creeping everywhere now,and the cocoons that they will spin just about this time.

I have a sneaking impression that 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 selfish with the wonders God has given to us.

We must share with those poor cooped-up city people the best we can.To send them a beautiful book,that is the way,is it not,little new friend of mine?""Yes,oh yes!"cried Elnora."And please God they find a way to earn the money to buy the books,as I have those I need so badly.""I will pay good prices for all the moths you can find,"said the Bird Woman,"because you see I exchange them with foreign collectors.I want a complete series of the moths of America to trade with a German scientist,another with a man in India,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 the city grade schools here to-day for specimens.There is a fund to supply the ward buildings.I'll help you get in touch with that.They want leaves of different trees,flowers,grasses,moths,insects,birds'nests and anything about birds."Elnora's eyes were blazing."Had I better go back to school or open a bank account and begin being a millionaire?

Uncle Wesley and I have a bushel of arrow points gathered,a stack of axes,pipes,skin-dressing tools,tubes and mortars.

I don't know how I ever shall wait three hours.""You must go,or you will be late,"said the Bird Woman.

"I will be ready at four."

After school closed Elnora,seated beside the Bird Woman,drove to Freckles's room in the Limberlost.One at a time the beautiful big moths were 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 closed,the list figured,and into Elnora's trembling fingers were paid fifty-nine dollars and sixteen cents.

Elnora clasped the money closely.

"Oh you beautiful stuff!"she cried."You are going to buy the books,pay the tuition,and take me to high school."Then because she was a woman,she sat on a log and looked at her shoes.Long after the Bird Woman drove away Elnora remained.She had her problem,and it was a big one.If she told her mother,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 the next day,placed the remainder in the farthest corner of the case,and locked the door.She then filled the front of her skirt from a heap of arrow points beneath the case and started home.