A Girl of the Limberlost | Page 8

cut one for her," suggested
Sinton. "Anyway, stop tearing yourself to pieces and tell me. If it isn't
clothes, what is it?"
"It's books and tuition. Over twenty dollars in all."
"Humph! First time I ever knew you to be stumped by twenty dollars,
Elnora," said Sinton, patting her hand.
"It's the first time you ever knew me to want money," answered Elnora.
"This is different from anything that ever happened to me. Oh, how can
I get it, Uncle Wesley?"
"Drive to town with me in the morning and I'll draw it from the bank
for you. I owe you every cent of it."

"You know you don't owe me a penny, and I wouldn't touch one from
you, unless I really could earn it. For anything that's past I owe you and
Aunt Margaret for all the home life and love I've ever known. I know
how you work, and I'll not take your money."
"Just a loan, Elnora, just a loan for a little while until you can earn it.
You can be proud with all the rest of the world, but there are no secrets
between us, are there, Elnora?"
"No," said Elnora, "there are none. You and Aunt Margaret have given
me all the love there has been in my life. That is the one reason above
all others why you shall not give me charity. Hand me money because
you find me crying for it! This isn't the first time this old trail has
known tears and heartache. All of us know that story. Freckles stuck to
what he undertook and won out. I stick, too. When Duncan moved
away he gave me all Freckles left in the swamp, and as I have inherited
his property maybe his luck will come with it. I won't touch your
money, but I'll win some way. First, I'm going home and try mother. It's
just possible I could find second-hand books, and perhaps all the tuition
need not be paid at once. Maybe they would accept it quarterly. But oh,
Uncle Wesley, you and Aunt Margaret keep on loving me! I'm so
lonely, and no one else cares!"
Wesley Sinton's jaws met with a click. He swallowed hard on bitter
words and changed what he would have liked to say three times before
it became articulate.
"Elnora," he said at last, "if it hadn't been for one thing I'd have tried to
take legal steps to make you ours when you were three years old.
Maggie said then it wasn't any use, but I've always held on. You see, I
was the first man there, honey, and there are things you see, that you
can't ever make anybody else understand. She loved him Elnora, she
just made an idol of him. There was that oozy green hole, with the thick
scum broke, and two or three big bubbles slowly rising that were the
breath of his body. There she was in spasms of agony, and beside her
the great heavy log she'd tried to throw him. I can't ever forgive her for
turning against you, and spoiling your childhood as she has, but I
couldn't forgive anybody else for abusing her. Maggie has got no mercy

on her, but Maggie didn't see what I did, and I've never tried to make it
very clear to her. It's been a little too plain for me ever since. Whenever
I look at your mother's face, I see what she saw, so I hold my tongue
and say, in my heart, `Give her a mite more time.' Some day it will
come. She does love you, Elnora. Everybody does, honey. It's just that
she's feeling so much, she can't express herself. You be a patient girl
and wait a little longer. After all, she's your mother, and you're all she's
got, but a memory, and it might do her good to let her know that she
was fooled in that."
"It would kill her!" cried the girl swiftly. "Uncle Wesley, it would kill
her! What do you mean?"
"Nothing," said Wesley Sinton soothingly. "Nothing, honey. That was
just one of them fool things a man says, when he is trying his best to be
wise. You see, she loved him mightily, and they'd been married only a
year, and what she was loving was what she thought he was. She hadn't
really got acquainted with the man yet. If it had been even one more
year, she could have borne it, and you'd have got justice. Having been a
teacher she was better educated and smarter than the rest of us, and so
she was more sensitive like. She can't understand she was loving a
dream. So I say it might do her good if somebody that knew, could tell
her, but