章节正文
spring house. Something brushed close by her face, and she
looked just in time to see a winged creature rise above the
cabin and sail away.
"That was a night bird," she muttered. As she stopped
to set the butter in the water, came another thought.
"Perhaps it was a moth!" Mrs. Comstock dropped the
butter and hurried out with the lamp; she held it high
above her head and waited until her arms ached.
Small insects of night gathered, and at last a little
dusty miller, but nothing came of any size.
"I must go where they are, if I get them," muttered
Mrs. Comstock.
She went to the barn after the stout pair of high boots
she used in feeding stock in deep snow. Throwing these
beside the back door she climbed to the loft over the spring
house, and hunted an old lard oil lantern and one of first
manufacture for oil. Both these she cleaned and filled.
She listened until everything up stairs had been still for
over half an hour. By that time it was past eleven o'clock.
Then she took the lantern from the kitchen, the two old
ones, a handful of matches, a ball of twine, and went from
the cabin, softly closing the door.
Sitting on the back steps, she put on the boots, and then
stood gazing into the perfumed June night, first in the
direction of the woods on her land, then toward the Limberlost.
Its outline was so dark and forbidding she shuddered
and went down the garden, following the path toward the
woods, but as she neared the pool her knees wavered and
her courage fled. The knowledge that in her soul she was
now glad Robert Comstock was at the bottom of it made a
coward of her, who fearlessly had mourned him there,
nights untold. She could not go on. She skirted the
back of the garden, crossed a field, and came out on
the road. Soon she reached the Limberlost. She hunted
until she found the old trail, then followed it stumbling
over logs and through clinging vines and grasses.
The heavy boots clumped on her feet, overhanging branches
whipped her face and pulled her hair. But her eyes were
on the sky as she went straining into the night, hoping to
find signs of a living creature on wing.
By and by she began to see the wavering flight of something
she thought near the right size. She had no idea
where she was, but she stopped, lighted a lantern and
hung it as high as she could reach. A little distance away
she placed the second and then the third. The objects
came nearer and sick with disappointment she saw that
they were bats. Crouching in the damp swamp grasses,
without a thought of snakes or venomous insects, she
waited, her eyes roving from lantern to lantern. Once she
thought a creature of high flight dropped near the lard oil
light, so she arose breathlesslywaiting, but either it
passed or it was an illusion. She glanced at the old lantern,
then at the new, and was on her feet in an instant creeping close.
Something large as a small bird was fluttering around.
Mrs. Comstock began to perspire, while her hand shook wildly.
Closer she crept and just as she reached for it, something
similar swept past and both flew away together.
Mrs. Comstock set her teeth and stood shivering. For a
long time the locusts rasped, the whip-poor-wills cried and
a steady hum of night life throbbed in her ears. Away in
the sky she saw something coming when it was no larger
than a falling leaf. Straight toward the light it flew.
Mrs. Comstock began to pray aloud.
"This way, O Lord! Make it come this way! Please!
O Lord, send it lower!"
The moth hesitated at the first light, then slowly,
easily it came toward the second, as if following a path
of air. It touched a leaf near the lantern and settled.
As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin yellow spray wet
her hand and the surrounding leaves. When its wings
raised above its back, her fingers came together.
She held the moth to the light. It was nearer brown than
yellow, and she remembered having seen some like it in
the boxes that afternoon. It was not the one needed to
complete the collection, but Elnora might want it, so
Mrs. Comstock held on. Then the Almighty was kind,
or nature was sufficient, as you look at it, for following
the law of its being when disturbed, the moth again threw
the spray by which some suppose it attracts its kind,
and liberally sprinkled Mrs. Comstock's dress front
and arms. From that instant, she became the best moth
bait ever invented. Every Polyphemus in range hastened
to her, and other fluttering creatures of night followed.
The influx came her way. She snatched wildly here and
there until she had one in each hand and no place to
put them. She could see more coming, and her aching
heart, swollen with the strain of long excitement,
hurt pitifully. She prayed in broken exclamations that
did not always sound reverent, but never was human soul
in more intense earnest.
Moths were coming. She had one in each hand.
They were not yellow, and she did not know what to do.
She glanced around to try to discover some way to keep
what she had, and her throbbing heart stopped and
every muscle stiffened. There was the dim outline of
a crouching figure not two yards away, and a pair of
eyes their owner thought hidden, caught the light in a
cold stream. Her first impulse was to scream and fly
for life. Before her lips could open a big moth alighted
on her breast while she felt another walking over her hair.
All sense of caution deserted her. She did not care to
live if she could not replace the yellow moth she had killed.
She turned her eyes to those among the leaves.
"Here, you!" she cried hoarsely. "I need you! Get yourself
out here, and help me. These critters are going to get away
from me. Hustle!"
Pete Corson parted the bushes and stepped into the light.
"Oh, it's you!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I might have known!
But you gave me a start. Here, hold these until I make some
sort of bag for them. Go easy! If you break them I don't
guarantee what will happen to you!"
"Pretty fierce, ain't you!" laughed Pete, but he advanced
and held out his hands. "For Elnora, I s'pose?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock. "In a mad fit, I trampled
one this morning, and by the luck of the old boy himself
it was the last moth she needed to complete a collection.
I got to get another one or die."
"Then I guess it's your funeral," said Pete. "There ain't
a chance in a dozen the right one will come. What colour
was it?"
"Yellow, and big as a bird."
"The Emperor, likely," said Pete. "You dig for
that kind, and they are not numerous, so's 'at you can
smash 'em for fun."
"Well, I can try to get one, anyway," said Mrs. Comstock.
"I forgot all about bringing anything to put them in.
You take a pinch on their wings until I make a poke."
Mrs. Comstock removed her apron, tearing off the strings.
She unfastened and stepped from the skirt of her
calico dress. With one apron string she tied shut the
band and placket. She pulled a wire pin from her hair,
stuck it through the other string, and using it as a bodkin
ran it around the hem of her skirt, so shortly she had a
large bag. She put several branches inside to which the
moths could cling, closed the mouth partially and held
it toward Pete.
"Put your hand well down and let the things go!" she ordered.
"But be careful, man! Don't run into the twigs! Easy!
That's one. Now the other. Is the one on my head gone?
There was one on my dress, but I guess it flew. Here comes
a kind of a gray-looking one."
Pete slipped several more moths into the bag.
"Now, that's five, Mrs. Comstock," he said. "I'm sorry,
but you'll have to make that do. You must get out of
here lively. Your lights will be taken for hurry
calls, and inside the next hour a couple of men will ride
here like fury. They won't be nice Sunday-school men,
and they won't hold bags and catch moths for you.
You must go quick!"
Mrs. Comstock laid down the bag and pulled one of
the lanterns lower.
"I won't budge a step," she said. "This land doesn't
belong to you. You have no right to order me off it.
Here I stay until I get a Yellow Emperor, and no little
petering thieves of this neighbourhood can scare me away."
"You don't understand," said Pete. "I'm willing to
help Elnora, and I'd take care of you, if I could, but
there will be too many for me, and they will be mad at
being called out for nothing."
"Well, who's calling them out?" demanded Mrs. Comstock.
"I'm catching moths. If a lot of good-for-nothings get
fooled into losing some sleep, why let them, they can't
hurt me, or stop my work."
"They can, and they'll do both."
"Well, I'll see them do it!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I've got
Robert's revolver in my dress, and I can shoot as straight
as any man, if I'm mad enough. Any one who interferes
with me to-night will find me mad a-plenty. There goes another!"
She stepped into the light and waited until a big brown
moth settled on her and was easily taken. Then in light,
airy flight came a delicate pale green thing, and Mrs.
Comstock started in pursuit. But the scent was not right.
The moth fluttered high, then dropped lower, still lower,
and sailed away. With outstretched hands Mrs. Comstock
pursued it. She hurried one way and another, then ran
over an object which tripped her and she fell.
She regained her feet in an instant, but she had lost sight
of the moth. With livid face she turned to the crouching man.
"You nasty, sneaking son of Satan!" she cried. "Why are
you hiding there? You made me lose the one I wanted
most of any I've had a chance at yet. Get out of here!
Go this minute, or I'll fill your worthlesscarcass so full
of holes you'll do to sift cornmeal. Go, I say! I'm using
the Limberlost to-night, and I won't be stopped by the
devil himself! Cut like fury, and tell the rest of them
they can just go home. Pete is going to help me, and
he is all of you I need. Now go!"
The man turned and went. Pete leaned against a tree,
held his mouth shut and shook inwardly. Mrs. Comstock
came back panting.
"The old scoundrel made me lose that!" she said. "If any
one else comes snooping around here I'll just blow them
up to start with. I haven't time to talk. Suppose that
had been yellow! I'd have killed that man, sure!
The Limberlost isn't safe to-night, and the sooner those
whelps find it out, the better it will be for them."
Pete stopped laughing to look at her. He saw that
she was speaking the truth. She was quite past reason,
sense, or fear. The soft night air stirred the wet hair
around her temples, the flickering lanterns made her face
a ghastly green. She would stop at nothing, that was evident.
looked just in time to see a winged creature rise above the
cabin and sail away.
"That was a night bird," she muttered. As she stopped
to set the butter in the water, came another thought.
"Perhaps it was a moth!" Mrs. Comstock dropped the
butter and hurried out with the lamp; she held it high
above her head and waited until her arms ached.
Small insects of night gathered, and at last a little
dusty miller, but nothing came of any size.
"I must go where they are, if I get them," muttered
Mrs. Comstock.
She went to the barn after the stout pair of high boots
she used in feeding stock in deep snow. Throwing these
beside the back door she climbed to the loft over the spring
house, and hunted an old lard oil lantern and one of first
manufacture for oil. Both these she cleaned and filled.
She listened until everything up stairs had been still for
over half an hour. By that time it was past eleven o'clock.
Then she took the lantern from the kitchen, the two old
ones, a handful of matches, a ball of twine, and went from
the cabin, softly closing the door.
Sitting on the back steps, she put on the boots, and then
stood gazing into the perfumed June night, first in the
direction of the woods on her land, then toward the Limberlost.
Its outline was so dark and forbidding she shuddered
and went down the garden, following the path toward the
woods, but as she neared the pool her knees wavered and
her courage fled. The knowledge that in her soul she was
now glad Robert Comstock was at the bottom of it made a
coward of her, who fearlessly had mourned him there,
nights untold. She could not go on. She skirted the
back of the garden, crossed a field, and came out on
the road. Soon she reached the Limberlost. She hunted
until she found the old trail, then followed it stumbling
over logs and through clinging vines and grasses.
The heavy boots clumped on her feet, overhanging branches
whipped her face and pulled her hair. But her eyes were
on the sky as she went straining into the night, hoping to
find signs of a living creature on wing.
By and by she began to see the wavering flight of something
she thought near the right size. She had no idea
where she was, but she stopped, lighted a lantern and
hung it as high as she could reach. A little distance away
she placed the second and then the third. The objects
came nearer and sick with disappointment she saw that
they were bats. Crouching in the damp swamp grasses,
without a thought of snakes or venomous insects, she
waited, her eyes roving from lantern to lantern. Once she
thought a creature of high flight dropped near the lard oil
light, so she arose breathlesslywaiting, but either it
passed or it was an illusion. She glanced at the old lantern,
then at the new, and was on her feet in an instant creeping close.
Something large as a small bird was fluttering around.
Mrs. Comstock began to perspire, while her hand shook wildly.
Closer she crept and just as she reached for it, something
similar swept past and both flew away together.
Mrs. Comstock set her teeth and stood shivering. For a
long time the locusts rasped, the whip-poor-wills cried and
a steady hum of night life throbbed in her ears. Away in
the sky she saw something coming when it was no larger
than a falling leaf. Straight toward the light it flew.
Mrs. Comstock began to pray aloud.
"This way, O Lord! Make it come this way! Please!
O Lord, send it lower!"
The moth hesitated at the first light, then slowly,
easily it came toward the second, as if following a path
of air. It touched a leaf near the lantern and settled.
As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin yellow spray wet
her hand and the surrounding leaves. When its wings
raised above its back, her fingers came together.
She held the moth to the light. It was nearer brown than
yellow, and she remembered having seen some like it in
the boxes that afternoon. It was not the one needed to
complete the collection, but Elnora might want it, so
Mrs. Comstock held on. Then the Almighty was kind,
or nature was sufficient, as you look at it, for following
the law of its being when disturbed, the moth again threw
the spray by which some suppose it attracts its kind,
and liberally sprinkled Mrs. Comstock's dress front
and arms. From that instant, she became the best moth
bait ever invented. Every Polyphemus in range hastened
to her, and other fluttering creatures of night followed.
The influx came her way. She snatched wildly here and
there until she had one in each hand and no place to
put them. She could see more coming, and her aching
heart, swollen with the strain of long excitement,
hurt pitifully. She prayed in broken exclamations that
did not always sound reverent, but never was human soul
in more intense earnest.
Moths were coming. She had one in each hand.
They were not yellow, and she did not know what to do.
She glanced around to try to discover some way to keep
what she had, and her throbbing heart stopped and
every muscle stiffened. There was the dim outline of
a crouching figure not two yards away, and a pair of
eyes their owner thought hidden, caught the light in a
cold stream. Her first impulse was to scream and fly
for life. Before her lips could open a big moth alighted
on her breast while she felt another walking over her hair.
All sense of caution deserted her. She did not care to
live if she could not replace the yellow moth she had killed.
She turned her eyes to those among the leaves.
"Here, you!" she cried hoarsely. "I need you! Get yourself
out here, and help me. These critters are going to get away
from me. Hustle!"
Pete Corson parted the bushes and stepped into the light.
"Oh, it's you!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I might have known!
But you gave me a start. Here, hold these until I make some
sort of bag for them. Go easy! If you break them I don't
guarantee what will happen to you!"
"Pretty fierce, ain't you!" laughed Pete, but he advanced
and held out his hands. "For Elnora, I s'pose?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock. "In a mad fit, I trampled
one this morning, and by the luck of the old boy himself
it was the last moth she needed to complete a collection.
I got to get another one or die."
"Then I guess it's your funeral," said Pete. "There ain't
a chance in a dozen the right one will come. What colour
was it?"
"Yellow, and big as a bird."
"The Emperor, likely," said Pete. "You dig for
that kind, and they are not numerous, so's 'at you can
smash 'em for fun."
"Well, I can try to get one, anyway," said Mrs. Comstock.
"I forgot all about bringing anything to put them in.
You take a pinch on their wings until I make a poke."
Mrs. Comstock removed her apron, tearing off the strings.
She unfastened and stepped from the skirt of her
calico dress. With one apron string she tied shut the
band and placket. She pulled a wire pin from her hair,
stuck it through the other string, and using it as a bodkin
ran it around the hem of her skirt, so shortly she had a
large bag. She put several branches inside to which the
moths could cling, closed the mouth partially and held
it toward Pete.
"Put your hand well down and let the things go!" she ordered.
"But be careful, man! Don't run into the twigs! Easy!
That's one. Now the other. Is the one on my head gone?
There was one on my dress, but I guess it flew. Here comes
a kind of a gray-looking one."
Pete slipped several more moths into the bag.
"Now, that's five, Mrs. Comstock," he said. "I'm sorry,
but you'll have to make that do. You must get out of
here lively. Your lights will be taken for hurry
calls, and inside the next hour a couple of men will ride
here like fury. They won't be nice Sunday-school men,
and they won't hold bags and catch moths for you.
You must go quick!"
Mrs. Comstock laid down the bag and pulled one of
the lanterns lower.
"I won't budge a step," she said. "This land doesn't
belong to you. You have no right to order me off it.
Here I stay until I get a Yellow Emperor, and no little
petering thieves of this neighbourhood can scare me away."
"You don't understand," said Pete. "I'm willing to
help Elnora, and I'd take care of you, if I could, but
there will be too many for me, and they will be mad at
being called out for nothing."
"Well, who's calling them out?" demanded Mrs. Comstock.
"I'm catching moths. If a lot of good-for-nothings get
fooled into losing some sleep, why let them, they can't
hurt me, or stop my work."
"They can, and they'll do both."
"Well, I'll see them do it!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I've got
Robert's revolver in my dress, and I can shoot as straight
as any man, if I'm mad enough. Any one who interferes
with me to-night will find me mad a-plenty. There goes another!"
She stepped into the light and waited until a big brown
moth settled on her and was easily taken. Then in light,
airy flight came a delicate pale green thing, and Mrs.
Comstock started in pursuit. But the scent was not right.
The moth fluttered high, then dropped lower, still lower,
and sailed away. With outstretched hands Mrs. Comstock
pursued it. She hurried one way and another, then ran
over an object which tripped her and she fell.
She regained her feet in an instant, but she had lost sight
of the moth. With livid face she turned to the crouching man.
"You nasty, sneaking son of Satan!" she cried. "Why are
you hiding there? You made me lose the one I wanted
most of any I've had a chance at yet. Get out of here!
Go this minute, or I'll fill your worthlesscarcass so full
of holes you'll do to sift cornmeal. Go, I say! I'm using
the Limberlost to-night, and I won't be stopped by the
devil himself! Cut like fury, and tell the rest of them
they can just go home. Pete is going to help me, and
he is all of you I need. Now go!"
The man turned and went. Pete leaned against a tree,
held his mouth shut and shook inwardly. Mrs. Comstock
came back panting.
"The old scoundrel made me lose that!" she said. "If any
one else comes snooping around here I'll just blow them
up to start with. I haven't time to talk. Suppose that
had been yellow! I'd have killed that man, sure!
The Limberlost isn't safe to-night, and the sooner those
whelps find it out, the better it will be for them."
Pete stopped laughing to look at her. He saw that
she was speaking the truth. She was quite past reason,
sense, or fear. The soft night air stirred the wet hair
around her temples, the flickering lanterns made her face
a ghastly green. She would stop at nothing, that was evident.
- winged [´wiŋd]
a.有翼的 (初中英语单词) - softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- outline [´autlain] n.外形 vt.画出...轮廓 (初中英语单词)
- flight [flait] n.逃走；飞行；班机 (初中英语单词)
- disappointment [,disə´pɔintmənt] n.失望；挫折 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- collection [kə´lekʃən] n.收集；征收；募捐 (初中英语单词)
- muscle [´mʌsəl] n.肌肉；体力；力量 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- impulse [´impʌls] n.推动(力)；冲动；刺激 (初中英语单词)
- scream [skri:m] v.&n.尖叫(声) (初中英语单词)
- replace [ri´pleis] vt.放回；复置；取代 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- emperor [´empərə] n.皇帝 (初中英语单词)
- shortly [´ʃɔ:tli] ad.立刻，马上；不久 (初中英语单词)
- lively [´laivli] a.活泼的；热烈的 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
- pursuit [pə´sju:t] n.追踪；追击；事务 (初中英语单词)
- evident [´evidənt] a.明显的，明白的 (初中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- lantern [´læntən] n.灯笼；提灯 (高中英语单词)
- handful [hændful] n.一把，少数，一小撮 (高中英语单词)
- illusion [i´lu:ʒən] n.幻觉；幻影；错觉 (高中英语单词)
- surrounding [sə´raundiŋ] n.周围的事物 (高中英语单词)
- strain [strein] vt.拉紧 vi.拖 n.张力 (高中英语单词)
- intense [in´tens] a.强烈的；紧张的 (高中英语单词)
- caution [´kɔ:ʃən] n.&vt.小心；告诫；警告 (高中英语单词)
- worthless [´wə:θləs] a.无价值的 (高中英语单词)
- ghastly [´gɑ:stli] a.苍白的；可怕的 (高中英语单词)
- miller [´milə] n.磨坊主；铣床(工) (英语四级单词)
- breathlessly [´breθlisli] ad.气喘吁吁地 (英语四级单词)
- almighty [ɔ:l´maiti] a.万能的；全能的 (英语四级单词)
- swollen [´swəulən] swell的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- partially [´pɑ:ʃəli] ad.部分地；局部地 (英语四级单词)
- thieves [θi:vz] thief的复数 (英语四级单词)
- revolver [ri´vɔlvə] n.左轮手枪；旋转者 (英语四级单词)
- carcass [´kɑ:kəs] n.(动物的)尸体 (英语四级单词)
- untold [,ʌn´təuld] a.没有说到的；无数的 (英语六级单词)
- venomous [´venəməs] a.有毒的；恶意的 (英语六级单词)
- hoarsely [´hɔ:sli] ad.嘶哑地 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- outstretched [,aut´stretʃt] a.扩张的；伸长的 (英语六级单词)
- inwardly [´inwədli] ad.内向；独自地 (英语六级单词)
- scoundrel [´skaundrəl] n.&a.无赖(的) (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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