A Girl of the Limberlost | Page 6

her face scarlet and her soul sick. The voice of the professor
addressed her directly.
"This proposition seems to be beautifully demonstrated, Miss
Cornstalk," he said. "Surely, you can tell us how you did it."
That word of praise saved her. She could do good work. They might
wear their pretty clothes, have their friends and make life a greater
misery than it ever before had been for her, but not one of them should
do better work or be more womanly. That lay with her. She was tall,
straight, and handsome as she arose.
"Of course I can explain my work," she said in natural tones. "What I
can't explain is how I happened to be so stupid as to make a mistake in
writing my own name. I must have been a little nervous. Please excuse
me."
She went to the board, swept off the signature with one stroke,then
rewrote it plainly. "My name is Comstock," she said distinctly. She
returned to her seat and following the formula used by the others made
her first high school recitation.
As Elnora resumed her seat Professor Henley looked at her steadily. "It
puzzles me," he said deliberately, how you can write as beautiful a
demonstration, and explain it as clearly as ever has been done in any of
my classes and still be so disturbed as to make a mistake in your own
name. Are you very sure you did that yourself, Miss Comstock?"
"It is impossible that any one else should have done it," answered

Elnora.
"I am very glad you think so," said the professor. "Being Freshmen, all
of you are strangers to me. I should dislike to begin the year with you
feeling there was one among you small enough to do a trick like that.
The next proposition, please."
When the hour had gone the class filed back to the study room and
Elnora followed in desperation, because she did not know where else to
go. She could not study as she had no books, and when the class again
left the room to go to another professor for the next recitation, she went
also. At least they could put her out if she did not belong there. Noon
came at last, and she kept with the others until they dispersed on the
sidewalk. She was so abnormally self- conscious she fancied all the
hundreds of that laughing, throng saw and jested at her. When she
passed the brown-eyed boy walking with the girl of her encounter, she
knew, for she heard him say: "Did you really let that gawky piece of
calico get ahead of you?" The answer was indistinct.
Elnora hurried from the city. She intended to get her lunch, eat it in the
shade of the first tree, and then decide whether she would go back or go
home. She knelt on the bridge and reached for her box, but it was so
very light that she was prepared for the fact that it was empty, before
opening it. There was one thing for which to be thankful. The boy or
tramp who had seen her hide it, had left the napkin. She would not have
to face her mother and account for its loss. She put it in her pocket, and
threw the box into the ditch. Then she sat on the bridge and tried to
think, but her brain was confused.
"Perhaps the worst is over," she said at last. "I will go back. What
would mother say to me if I came home now?"
So she returned to the high school, followed some other pupils to the
coat room, hung her hat, and found her way to the study where she had
been in the morning. Twice that afternoon, with aching head and empty
stomach, she faced strange professors, in different branches. Once she
escaped notice; the second time the worst happened. She was asked a
question she could not answer.

"Have you not decided on your course, and secured your books?"
inquired the professor.
"I have decided on my course," replied Elnora, "I do not know where to
ask for my books."
"Ask?" the professor was bewildered.
"I understood the books were furnished," faltered Elnora.
"Only to those bringing an order from the township trustee," replied the
Professor.
"No! Oh no!" cried Elnora. "I will have them to- morrow," and gripped
her desk for support for she knew that was not true. Four books,
ranging perhaps at a dollar and a half apiece; would her mother buy
them? Of course she would not--could not.
Did not Elnora know the story of old. There was enough land, but no
one to do clearing and farm. Tax on all those acres, recently the new
gravel road tax added, the expense of living and