bound them fast, pinned on
the skimpy black hat and opened the back door.

"You've gone so plumb daffy you are forgetting your dinner," jeered her
mother.

"I don't want anything to eat," replied Elnora.

"You'll take your dinner or you'll not go one step. Are you crazy? Walk
almost three miles and no food from six in the morning until six at
night. A pretty figure you'd cut if you had your way! And after I've
gone and bought you this nice new pail and filled it especial to start
on!"

Elnora came back with a face still whiter and picked up the lunch.
"Thank you, mother! Good-bye!" she said. Mrs. Comstock did not reply.
She watched the girl follow the long walk to the gate and go from sight
on the road, in the bright sunshine of the first Monday of September.

"I bet a dollar she gets enough of it by night!" commented Mrs.
Comstock.

Elnora walked by instinct, for her eyes were blinded with tears. She
left the road where it turned south, at the corner of the Limberlost,
climbed a snake fence and entered a path worn by her own feet. Dodging
under willow and scrub oak branches she came at last to the faint
outline of an old trail made in the days when the precious timber of the
swamp was guarded by armed men. This path she followed until she reached
a thick clump of bushes. From the debris in the end of a hollow log she
took a key that unlocked the padlock of a large weatherbeaten old box,
inside of which lay several books, a butterfly apparatus, and a small
cracked mirror. The walls were lined thickly with gaudy butterflies,
dragonflies, and moths. She set up the mirror and once more pulling
the ribbon from her hair, she shook the bright mass over her shoulders,
tossing it dry in the sunshine. Then she straightened it, bound it
loosely, and replaced her hat. She tugged vainly at the low brown calico
collar and gazed despairingly at the generous length of the narrow
skirt. She lifted it as she would have cut it if possible. That
disclosed the heavy high leather shoes, at sight of which she seemed
positively ill, and hastily dropped the skirt. She opened the pail,
removed the lunch, wrapped it in the napkin, and placed it in a small
pasteboard box. Locking the case again she hid the key and hurried down
the trail.

She followed it around the north end of the swamp and then entered a
footpath crossing a farm leading in the direction of the spires of the
city to the northeast. Again she climbed a fence and was on t