She drew close the edge of the ditch as we approached the
lilies. As the horse stopped, what I had taken for a fallen lily
bloom, suddenly opened to over five inches of gorgeous red-brown,
canary-spotted wing sweep, and then closed again.
"It is a moth!" we gasped, with one breath.
Molly-Cotton cramped the wheel on my side of the carriage and
started to step down. Then she dropped back to the seat.
"I am afraid," she said. "I don't want you to wade that
ditch in the rain, but you never have had a red one, and if
I bungle and let it escape, I never will forgive myself."
She swung the horse to the other side, and I climbed down.
Gathering my skirts, I crossed the ditch as best I could, and
reached the lily bed, but I was trembling until my knees wavered.
I stepped between the lilies and the cornfield, leaned over
breathlessly, and waited in the pelting rain, until the moth again
raised its wings above its back. Then with a sweep learned in
childhood, I had it.
While crossing the ditch, I noticed there were numbers of heavy
yellow paper bags lying where people had thrown them when emptied
of bananas and biscuits, on leaving town.
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