Closer she crept and just as she reached for it, something
similar swept past and both flew away together.
Mrs. Comstock set her teeth and stood shivering. For a long time the
locusts rasped, the whip-poor-wills cried and a steady hum of night life
throbbed in her ears. Away in the sky she saw something coming when it
was no larger than a falling leaf. Straight toward the light it flew.
Mrs. Comstock began to pray aloud.
"This way, O Lord! Make it come this way! Please! O Lord, send it
lower!"
The moth hesitated at the first light, then slowly, easily it came
toward the second, as if following a path of air. It touched a leaf near
the lantern and settled. As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin yellow
spray wet her hand and the surrounding leaves. When its wings raised
above its back, her fingers came together. She held the moth to the
light. It was nearer brown than yellow, and she remembered having seen
some like it in the boxes that afternoon. It was not the one needed to
complete the collection, but Elnora might want it, so Mrs. Comstock held
on. Then the Almighty was kind, or nature was sufficient, as you look
at it, for following the law of its being when disturbed, the moth
again threw the spray by which some suppose it attracts its kind, and
liberally sprinkled Mrs. Comstock's dress front and arms. From that
instant, she became the best moth bait ever invented. Every Polyphemus
in range hastened to her, and other fluttering creatures of night
followed.
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