Promise and fulfilment
I've been re-reading a classic novel that I knew as a girl. Gene Stratton Porter wrote "A Girl of the Limberlost" about Indiana's great wooded swamps, thick with moths and mysteries. It appealed to me because I, too, was a solitary child wandering the woods, exploring the patch of second-growth woods below our house, chasing butterflies in the hayfields. The book (I remember it with pale green covers, the color of a luna moth) seems antique now, the sentiments labored and the transitions often choppy, yet the old allure is there, like the music of the Limberlost. The poor country girl facing the challenges of a city school, her hunger for knowledge, the dangerous beauties of wild places - those remain fresh. Each chapter is titled with a promise of what lies ahead, "Wherein Elnora has more financial troubles, and Mrs. Comstock again hears the song of the Limberlost." These titles are an enticement, but also a pledge - you will experience this, you will l...