bitter memories or draw deeper a line on the
hard, white face. This cost many sacrifices, much work, and sometimes
delayed progress, but the horror of that awful dream remained with
Elnora. She worked her way cheerfully, doing all she could to interest
her mother in things that happened in school, in the city, and by
carrying books that were entertaining from the public library.

Three years had changed Elnora from the girl of sixteen to the very
verge of womanhood. She had grown tall, round, and her face had the
loveliness of perfect complexion, beautiful eyes and hair and an added
touch from within that might have been called comprehension. It was a
compound of self-reliance, hard knocks, heart hunger, unceasing work,
and generosity. There was no form of suffering with which the girl could
not sympathize, no work she was afraid to attempt, no subject she had
investigated she did not understand. These things combined to produce a
breadth and depth of character altogether unusual. She was so absorbed
in her classes and her music that she had not been able to gather many
specimens. When she realized this and hunted assiduously, she soon found
that changing natural conditions had affected such work. Men all around
were clearing available land. The trees fell wherever corn would grow.
The swamp was broken by several gravel roads, dotted in places around
the edge with little frame houses, and the machinery of oil wells; one
especially low place around the region of Freckles's room was nearly
all that remained of the original. Wherever the trees fell the moisture
dried, the creeks ceased to flow, the river ran low, and at times the
bed was dry. With unbroken sweep the winds of the west came, gathering
force with every mile and howled and raved; threatening to tear the
shingles from the roof, blowing the surface from the soil in clouds of
fine dust and rapidly changing everything. From coming in with two or
three dozen rare moths in a day, in three years' time Elnora had grown
to be delighted with finding two or three. Big pursy caterpillars could
not be picked from their favourite bushes, when there were no bushes.
Dragonflies would not hover over dry places, and butterflies became
scarce in proportion to the flowers, while no land yields over three
crops of Indian relics.

All the time the expense of books, clothing and incidentals had
continued. Elnora added to her bank account whenever she could, and drew
out when she wa