es, if Kate lets her wear them. Ten to one, she makes her finish the
week with that old stuff!"

"No, she won't," said Margaret. "She'll hardly dare. Kate made some
concessions, all right; big ones for her--if she did get her way in
the main. She bent some, and if Elnora proves that she can walk out
barehanded in the morning and come back with that much money in her
pocket, an armful of books, and buy a turnout like that, she proves
that she is of some consideration, and Kate's smart enough. She'll think
twice before she'll do that. Elnora won't wear a calico dress to high
school again. You watch and see if she does. She may have the best
clothes she'll get for a time, for the least money, but she won't know
it until she tries to buy goods herself at the same rates. Wesley, what
about those prices? Didn't they shrink considerable?"

"You began it," said Wesley. "Those prices were all right. We didn't say
what the goods cost us, we said what they would cost her. Surely, she's
mistaken about being able to pay all that. Can she pick up stuff of that
value around the Limberlost? Didn't the Bird Woman see her trouble, and
just give her the money?"

"I don't think so," said Margaret. "Seems to me I've heard of her
paying, or offering to pay those who would take the money, for bugs and
butterflies, and I've known people who sold that banker Indian stuff.
Once I heard that his pipe collection beat that of the Government at the
Philadelphia Centennial. Those things have come to have a value."

"Well, there's about a bushel of that kind of valuables piled up in the
woodshed, that belongs to Elnora. At least, I picked them up because she
said she wanted them. Ain't it queer that she'd take to stones, bugs,
and butterflies, and save them. Now they are going to bring her the very
thing she wants the worst. Lord, but this is a funny world when you get
to studying! Looks like things didn't all come by accident. Looks as if
there was a plan back of it, and somebody driving that knows the road,
and how to handle the lines. Anyhow, Elnora's in the wagon, and when I
get out in the night and the dark closes around me, and I see the stars,
I don't feel so cheap. Maggie, how the nation did Kate Comstock do
that?"

"You will keep on harping, Wesley. I told you she didn't do it. Elnora
did it! She walked in and took things right out of our hands. All Kate
had to do was to enjoy having it go her way, and she was cute enough
to put in a few