CHAPTER III
Wherein a Feather Falls and a Soul Is Born
So Freckles fared through the bitter winter. He was very happy.
He had hungered for freedom, love, and appreciation so long! He
had been unspeakably lonely at the Home; and the utter loneliness
of a great desert or forest is not so difficult to endure as the
loneliness of being constantly surrounded by crowds of people who
do not care in the least whether one is living or dead.
All through the winter Freckles' entire energy was given to keeping
up his lines and his "chickens" from freezing or starving.
When the first breath of spring touched the Limberlost, and the
snow receded before it; when the catkins began to bloom; when there
came a hint of green to the trees, bushes, and swale; when the rushes
lifted their heads, and the pulse of the newly resurrected season
beat strongly in the heart of nature, something new stirred in the
breast of the boy.
Nature always levies her tribute. Now she laid a powerful hand on
the soul of Freckles, to which the boy's whole being responded,
though he had not the least idea what was troubling him. Duncan
accepted his wife's theory that it was a touch of spring fever,
but Freckles knew better. He never had been so well. Clean, hot,
and steady the blood pulsed in his veins. He was always hungry,
and his most difficult work tired him not at all. For long months,
without a single intermission, he had tramped those seven miles
of trail twice each day, through every conceivable state of weather.
With the heavy club he gave his wires a sure test, and between sections,
first in play, afterward to keep his circulation going, he had acquired
the skill of an expert drum major. In his work there was exercise
for every muscle of his body each hour of the day, at night a bath,
wholesome food, and sound sleep in a room that never knew fire.
He had gained flesh and color, and developed a greater strength
and endurance than anyone ever could have guessed.
Nor did the Limberlost contain last year's terrors. He had been
with her in her hour of desolation, when stripped bare and deserted,
she had stood shivering, as if herself afraid. He had made excursions
into the interior until he was familiar with every path and road
that ever had been cut. He had sounded the depths of her deepest
pools, and had learned why the trees grew so magnificently. He had
found that places of swamp and swale were few compared with miles
of solid timber-land, concealed by summer's luxuriant undergrowth.
The sounds that at first had struck cold fear into his soul he now
knew had left on wing and silent foot at the approach of winter.
As flock after flock of the birds returned and he recognized the
old echoes reawakening, he found to his surprise that he had been
lonely for them and was hailing their return with great joy. All
his fears were forgotten. Instead, he was possessed of an overpowering
desire to know what they were, to learn where they had been, and
whether they would make friends with him as the winter birds had
done; and if they did, would they be as fickle? For, with the running
sap, creeping worm, and winging bug, most of Freckles' "chickens"
had deserted him, entered the swamp, and feasted to such a state
of plethora on its store that they cared little for his supply,
so that in the strenuous days of mating and nest-building the boy
was deserted.
He chafed at the birds' ingratitude, but he found speedy consolation
in watching and befriending the newcomers. He surely would have
been proud and highly pleased if he had known that many of the former
inhabitants of the interior swamp now grouped their nests beside
the timber-line solely for the sake of his protection and company.
The yearly resurrection of the Limberlost is a mighty revival. Freckles
stood back and watched with awe and envy the gradual reclothing
and repopulation of the swamp. Keen-eyed and alert through danger
and loneliness, he noted every stage of development, from the first
piping frog and unsheathing bud, to full leafage and the return
of the last migrant.
The knowledge of his complete loneliness and utter insignificance
was hourly thrust upon him. He brooded and fretted until he was
in a fever; yet he never guessed the cause. He was filled with a
vast impatience, a longing that he scarcely could endure.
It was June by the zodiac, June by the Limberlost, and by every
delight of a newly resurrected season it should have been June in
the hearts of all men. Yet Freckles scowled darkly as he came down
the trail, and the running TAP, TAP that tested the sagging wire
and telegraphed word of his coming to his furred and feathered friends
of the swamp, this morning carried the story of his discontent a
mile ahead of him.
Freckles' special pet, a dainty, yellow-coated, black-sleeved, cock
goldfinch, had remained on the wire for several days past the bravest
of all; and Freckles, absorbed with the cunning and beauty of the
tiny fellow, never guessed that he was being duped. For the goldfinch
was skipping, flirting, and swinging for the express purpose of
so holding his attention that he would not look up and see a small
cradle of thistledown and wool perilously near his head. In the
beginning of brooding, the spunky little homesteader had clung heroically
to the wire when he was almost paralyzed with fright. When day after
day passed and brought only softly whistled repetitions of his call,
a handful of crumbs on the top of a locust line-post, and gently
worded coaxings, he grew in confidence. Of late he had sung and
swung during the passing of Freckles, who, not dreaming of the nest
and the solemn-eyed little hen so close above, thought himself unusually
gifted in his power to attract the birds. This morning the goldfinch
scarcely could believe his ears, and clung to the wire until an
unusually vicious rap sent him spinning a foot in air, and his "PTSEET"
came with a squall of utter panic.
The wires were ringing with a story the birds could not translate,
and Freckles was quite as ignorant of the trouble as they.
A peculiar movement beneath a small walnut tree caught his attention.
He stopped to investigate. There was an unusually large Luna cocoon,
and the moth was bursting the upper end in its struggles to reach
light and air. Freckles stood and stared.
"There's something in there trying to get out," he muttered.
"Wonder if I could help it? Guess I best not be trying. If
I hadn't happened along, there wouldn't have been anyone to do anything,
and maybe I'd only be hurting it. It's--it's----Oh, skaggany! It's
just being born!"
Freckles gasped with surprise. The moth cleared the opening, and
with many wabblings and contortions climbed up the tree. He stared
speechless with amazement as the moth crept around a limb and clung
to the under side. There was a big pursy body, almost as large as
his thumb, and of the very snowiest white that Freckles ever had
seen. There was a band of delicate lavender across its forehead,
and its feet were of the same colour; there were antlers, like tiny,
straw-colored ferns, on its head, and from its shoulders hung the
crumpled wet wings. As Freckles gazed, tense with astonishment,
he saw that these were expanding, drooping, taking on color, and
small, oval markings were beginning to show.
The minutes passed. Freckles' steady gaze never wavered. Without
realizing it, he was trembling with eagerness and anxiety. As he
saw what was taking place, "It's going to fly," he breathed
in hushed wonder. The morning sun fell on the moth and dried its
velvet down, while the warm air made it fluffy. The rapidly growing
wings began to show the most delicate green, with lavender fore-ribs,
transparent, eye-shaped markings, edged with lines of red, tan,
and black, and long, crisp trailers.
Freckles was whispering to himself for fear of disturbing the moth.
It began a systematic exercise of raising and lowering its exquisite
wings to dry them and to establish circulation. The boy realized
that soon it would be able to spread them and sail away. His long-coming
soul sent up its first shivering cry.
"I don't know what it is! Oh, I wish I knew! How I wish I knew!
It must be something grand! It can't be a butterfly! It's away too
big. Oh, I wish there was someone to tell me what it is!"
He climbed on the locust post, and balancing himself with the wire,
held a finger in the line of the moth's advance up the twig. It
unhesitatingly climbed on, so he stepped to the path, holding it
to the light and examining it closely. Then he held it in the shade
and turned it, gloating over its markings and beautiful coloring.
When he held the moth to the limb, it climbed on, still waving those
magnificent wings.
"My, but I'd like to be staying with you!" he said. "But
if I was to stand here all day you couldn't grow any prettier than
you are right now, and I wouldn't grow smart enough to tell what
you are. I suppose there's someone who knows. Of course there is!
Mr. McLean said there were people who knew every leaf, bird, and
flower in the Limberlost. Oh Lord! How I wish You'd be telling me
just this one thing!"
The goldfinch had ventured back to the wire, for there was his mate,
only a few inches above the man-creature's head; and indeed, he
simply must not be allowed to look up, so the brave little fellow
rocked on the wire and piped, as he had done every day for a week:
"SEE ME? SEE ME?"
"See you! Of course I see you," growled Freckles. "I
see you day after day, and what good is it doing me? I might see
you every morning for a year, and then not be able to be telling
anyone about it. `Seen a bird with black silk wings--little, and
yellow as any canary.' That's as far as I'd get. What you doing
here, anyway? Have you a mate? What's your name? `See you?' I reckon
I see you; but I might as well be blind, for any good it's doing
me!"
Freckles impatiently struck the wire. With a screech of fear, the
goldfinch fled precipitately. His mate arose from the nest with
a whirr--Freckles looked up and saw it.
"O--ho!" he cried. "So THAT'S what you are doing
here! You have a wife. And so close my head I have been mighty near
wearing a bird on my bonnet, and never knew it!"
Freckles laughed at his own jest, while in better humor he climbed
to examine the neat, tiny cradle and its contents. The hen darted
at him in a frenzy. "Now, where do you come in?" he demanded,
when he saw that she was not similar to the goldfinch.
"You be clearing out of here! This is none of your fry. This
is the nest of me little, yellow friend of the wire, and you shan't
be touching it. Don't blame you for wanting to see, though. My,
but it's a fine nest and beauties of eggs. Will you be keeping away,
or will I fire this stick at you?"
Freckles dropped to the trail. The hen darted to the nest and settled
on it with a tender, coddling movement. He of the yellow coat flew
to the edge to make sure that everything was right. It would have
been plain to the veriest novice that they were partners in that
cradle.
"Well, I'll be switched!" muttered Freckles. "If
that ain't both their nest! And he's yellow and she's green, or
she's yellow and he's green. Of course, I don't know, and I haven't
any way to find out, but it's plain as the nose on your face that
they are both ready to be fighting for that nest, so, of course,
they belong. Doesn't that beat you? Say, that's what's been sticking
me all of this week on that grass nest in the thorn tree down the
line. One day a blue bird is setting, so I think it is hers. The
next day a brown bird is on, and I chase it off because the nest
is blue's. Next day the brown bird is on again, and I let her be,
because I think it must be hers. Next day, be golly, blue's on,
and off I send her because it's brown's; and now, I bet my hat,
it's both their nest and I've only been bothering them and making
a big fool of mesilf. Pretty specimen I am, pretending to be a friend
to the birds, and so blamed ignorant I don't know which ones go
in pairs, and blue and brown are a pair, of course, if yellow and
green are--and there's the red birds! I never thought of them! He's
red and she's gray--and now I want to be knowing, are they all different?
Why no! Of course, they ain't! There's the jays all blue, and the
crows all black."
The tide of Freckles' discontent welled until he almost choked with
anger and chagrin. He plodded down the trail, scowling blackly and
viciously spanging the wire. At the finches' nest he left the line
and peered into the thorn tree. There was no bird brooding. He pressed
closer to take a peep at the snowy, spotless little eggs he had
found so beautiful, when at the slight noise up raised four tiny
baby heads with wide-open mouths, uttering hunger cries. Freckles
stepped back. The brown bird alighted on the edge and closed one
cavity with a wiggling green worm, while not two minutes later the
blue filled another with a white. That settled it. The blue and
brown were mates. Once again Freckles repeated his "How I wish
I knew!"
Around the bridge spanning Sleepy Snake Creek the swale spread widely,
the timber was scattering, and willows, rushes, marsh- grass, and
splendid wild flowers grew abundantly. Here lazy, big, black water
snakes, for which the creek was named, sunned on the bushes, wild
ducks and grebe chattered, cranes and herons fished, and muskrats
plowed the bank in queer, rolling furrows. It was always a place
full of interest, so Freckles loved to linger on the bridge, watching
the marsh and water people. He also transacted affairs of importance
with the wild flowers and sweet marsh-grass. He enjoyed splashing
through the shallow pools on either side of the bridge.
Then, too, where the creek entered the swamp was a place of unusual
beauty. The water spread in darksome, mossy, green pools. Water-plants
and lilies grew luxuriantly, throwing up large, rank, green leaves.
Nowhere else in the Limberlost could be found frog-music to equal
that of the mouth of the creek. The drumming and piping rolled in
never-ending orchestral effect, while the full chorus rang to its
accompaniment throughout the season.
Freckles slowly followed the path leading from the bridge to the
line. It was the one spot at which he might relax his vigilance.
The boldest timber thief the swamp ever had known would not have
attempted to enter it by the mouth of the creek, on account of the
water and because there was no protection from surrounding trees.
He was bending the rank grass with his cudgel, and thinking of the
shade the denser swamp afforded, when he suddenly dodged sidewise;
the cudgel whistled sharply through the air and Freckles sprang
back.
From the clear sky above him, first level with his face, then skimming,
dipping, tilting, whirling until it struck, quill down, in the path
in front of him, came a glossy, iridescent, big black feather. As
it touched the ground, Freckles snatched it up with almost a continuous
movement facing the sky. There was not a tree of any size in a large
open space. There was no wind to carry it. From the clear sky it
had fallen, and Freckles, gazing eagerly into the arch of June blue
with a few lazy clouds floating high in the sea of ether, had neither
mind nor knowledge to dream of a bird hanging as if frozen there.
He turned the big quill questioningly, and again his awed eyes swept
the sky.
"A feather dropped from Heaven!" he breathed reverently.
"Are the holy angels moulting? But no; if they were, it would
be white. Maybe all the angels are not for being white. What if
the angels of God are white and those of the devil are black? But
a black one has no business up there. Maybe some poor black angel
is so tired of being punished it's for slipping to the gates, beating
its wings trying to make the Master hear!"
Again and again Freckles searched the sky, but there was no answering
gleam of golden gates, no form of sailing bird; then he went slowly
on his way, turning the feather and wondering about it. It was a
wing quill, eighteen inches in length, with a heavy spine, gray
at the base, shading to jet black at the tip, and it caught the
play of the sun's rays in slanting gleams of green and bronze. Again
Freckles' "old man of the sea" sat sullen and heavy on
his shoulders and weighted him down until his step lagged and his
heart ached.
"Where did it come from? What is it? Oh, how I wish I knew!"
he kept repeating as he turned and studied the feather, with almost
unseeing eyes, so intently was he thinking.
Before him spread a large, green pool, filled with rotting logs
and leaves, bordered with delicate ferns and grasses among which
lifted the creamy spikes of the arrow-head, the blue of water-hyacinth,
and the delicate yellow of the jewel-flower. As Freckles leaned,
handling the feather and staring at it, then into the depths of
the pool, he once more gave voice to his old query: "I wonder
what it is!"
Straight across from him, couched in the mosses of a soggy old log,
a big green bullfrog, with palpitant throat and batting eyes, lifted
his head and bellowed in answer. "FIN' DOUT! FIN' DOUT!"
"Wha--what's that?" stammered Freckles, almost too much
bewildered to speak. "I--I know you are only a bullfrog, but,
be jabbers, that sounded mightily like speech. Wouldn't you please
to be saying it over?"
The bullfrog cuddled contentedly in the ooze. Then suddenly he lifted
his voice, and, as an imperative drumbeat, rolled it again: "FIN'
DOUT! FIN' DOUT! FIN DOUT!"
Freckles had the answer. Something seemed to snap in his brain.
There was a wavering flame before his eyes. Then his mind cleared.
His head lifted in a new poise, his shoulders squared, while his
spine straightened. The agony was over. His soul floated free. Freckles
came into his birthright.
"Before God, I will!" He uttered the oath so impressively
that the recording angel never winced as he posted it in the prayer
column.
Freckles set his hat over the top of one of the locust posts used
between trees to hold up the wire while he fastened the feather
securely in the band. Then he started down the line, talking to
himself as men who have worked long alone always fall into the habit
of doing.
"What a fool I have been!" he muttered. "Of course
that's what I have to do! There wouldn't likely anybody be doing
it for me. Of course I can! What am I a man for? If I was a four-footed
thing of the swamp, maybe I couldn't; but a man can do anything
if he's the grit to work hard enough and stick at it, Mr. McLean
is always saying, and here's the way I am to do it. He said, too,
that there were people that knew everything in the swamp. Of course
they have written books! The thing for me to be doing is to quit
moping and be buying some. Never bought a book in me life, or anything
else of much account, for that matter. Oh, ain't I glad I didn't
waste me money! I'll surely be having enough to get a few. Let me
see."
Freckles sat on a log, took his pencil and account-book, and figured
on a back page. He had walked the timber-line ten months. His pay
was thirty dollars a month, and his board cost him eight. That left
twenty-two dollars a month, and his clothing had cost him very little.
At the least he had two hundred dollars in the bank. He drew a deep
breath and smiled at the sky with satisfaction.
"I'll be having a book about all the birds, trees, flowers,
butterflies, and----Yes, by gummy! I'll be having one about the
frogs--if it takes every cent I have," he promised himself.
He put away the account-book, that was his most cherished possession,
caught up his stick, and started down the line. The even tap, tap,
and the cheery, gladsome whistle carried far ahead of him the message
that Freckles was himself again.
He fell into a rapid pace, for he had lost time that morning; when
he rounded the last curve he was almost running. There was a chance
that the Boss might be there for his weekly report.
Then, wavering, flickering, darting here and there over the sweet
marsh-grass, came a large black shadow, sweeping so closely before
him that for the second time that morning Freckles dodged and sprang
back. He had seen some owls and hawks of the swamp that he thought
might be classed as large birds, but never anything like this, for
six feet it spread its big, shining wings. Its strong feet could
be seen drawn among its feathers. The sun glinted on its sharp,
hooked beak. Its eyes glowed, caught the light, and seemed able
to pierce the ground at his feet. It cared no more for Freckles
than if he had not been there; for it perched on a low tree, while
a second later it awkwardly hopped to the trunk of a lightning-riven
elm, turned its back, and began searching the blue.
Freckles looked just in time to see a second shadow sweep the grass;
and another bird, a trifle smaller and not quite so brilliant in
the light, slowly sailed down to perch beside the first. Evidently
they were mates, for with a queer, rolling hop the first-comer shivered
his bronze wings, sidled to the new arrival, and gave her a silly
little peck on her wing. Then he coquettishly drew away and ogled
her. He lifted his head, waddled from her a few steps, awkwardly
ambled back, and gave her such a simple sort of kiss on her beak
that Freckles burst into a laugh, but clapped his hand over his
mouth to stifle the sound.
The lover ducked and side-stepped a few feet. He spread his wings
and slowly and softly waved them precisely as if he were fanning
his charmer, which was indeed the result he accomplished. Then a
wave of uncontrollable tenderness moved him so he hobbled to his
bombardment once more. He faced her squarely this time, and turned
his head from side to side with queer little jerks and indiscriminate
peckings at her wings and head, and smirkings that really should
have been irresistible. She yawned and shuffled away indifferently.
Freckles reached up, pulled the quill from his hat, and looking
from it to the birds, nodded in settled conviction.
"So you're me black angels, ye spalpeens! No wonder you didn't
get in! But I'll back you to come closer it than any other birds
ever did. You fly higher than I can see. Have you picked the Limberlost
for a good thing and come to try it? Well, you can be me chickens
if you want to, but I'm blest if you ain't cool for new ones. Why
don't you take this stick for a gun and go skinning a mile?"
Freckles broke into an unrestrained laugh, for the bird-lover was
keen about his courting, while evidently his mate was diffident.
When he approached too boisterously, she relieved him of a goodly
tuft of feathers and sent him backward in a series of squirmy little
jumps that gave the boy an idea of what had happened up-sky to send
the falling feather across his pathway.
"Score one for the lady! I'll be umpiring this," volunteered
Freckles.
With a ravishing swagger, half-lifted wings, and deep, guttural
hissing, the lover approached again. He suddenly lifted his body,
but she coolly rocked forward on the limb, glided gracefully beneath
him, and slowly sailed into the Limberlost. He recovered himself
and gazed after her in astonishment.
Freckles hurried down the trail, shaking with laughter. When he
neared the path to the clearing and saw the Boss sitting motionless
on the mare that was the pride of his heart, the boy broke into
a run.
"Oh, Mr. McLean!" he cried. "I hope I haven't kept
you waiting very long! And the sun is getting hot! I have been so
slow this morning! I could have gone faster, only there were that
many things to keep me, and I didn't know you would be here. I'll
hurry after this. I've never had to be giving excuses before. The
line wasn't down, and there wasn't a sign of trouble; it was other
things that were making me late."
McLean, smiling on the boy, immediately noticed the difference in
him. This flushed, panting, talkative lad was not the same creature
who had sought him in despair and bitterness. He watched in wonder
as Freckles mopped the perspiration from his forehead and began
to laugh. Then, forgetting all his customary reserve with the Boss,
the pent-up boyishness in the lad broke forth. With an eloquence
of which he never dreamed he told his story. He talked with such
enthusiasm that McLean never took his eyes from his face or shifted
in the saddle until he described the strange bird-lover, and then
the Boss suddenly bent over the pommel and laughed with the boy.
Freckles decorated his story with keen appreciation and rare touches
of Irish wit and drollery that made it most interesting as well
as very funny. It was a first attempt at descriptive narration.
With an inborn gift for striking the vital point, a naturalist's
dawning enthusiasm for the wonders of the Limberlost, and the welling
joy of his newly found happiness, he made McLean see the struggles
of the moth and its freshly painted wings, the dainty, brilliant
bird-mates of different colors, the feather sliding through the
clear air, the palpitant throat and batting eyes of the frog; while
his version of the big bird's courtship won for the Boss the best
laugh he had enjoyed for years.
"They're in the middle of a swamp now" said Freckles.
"Do you suppose there is any chance of them staying with me
chickens? If they do, they'll be about the queerest I have; but
I tell you, sir, I am finding some plum good ones. There's a new
kind over at the mouth of the creek that uses its wings like feet
and walks on all fours. It travels like a thrashing machine. There's
another, tall as me waist, with a bill a foot long, a neck near
two, not the thickness of me wrist and an elegant color. He's some
blue and gray, touched up with black, white, and brown. The voice
of him is such that if he'd be going up and standing beside a tree
and crying at it a few times he could be sawing it square off. I
don't know but it would be a good idea to try him on the gang, sir."
McLean laughed. "Those must be blue herons, Freckles,"
he said. "And it doesn't seem possible, but your description
of the big black birds sounds like genuine black vultures. They
are common enough in the South. I've seen them numerous around the
lumber camps of Georgia, but I never before heard of any this far
north. They must be strays. You have described perfectly our nearest
equivalent to a branch of these birds called in Europe Pharaoh's
Chickens, but if they are coming to the Limberlost they will have
to drop Pharaoh and become Freckles' Chickens, like the remainder
of the birds; won't they? Or are they too odd and ugly to interest
you?"
"Oh, not at all, at all!" cried Freckles, bursting into
pure brogue in his haste. "I don't know as I'd be calling them
exactly pretty, and they do move like a rocking-horse loping, but
they are so big and fearless. They have a fine color for black birds,
and their feet and beaks seem so strong. You never saw anything
so keen as their eyes! And fly? Why, just think, sir, they must
be flying miles straight up, for they were out of sight completely
when the feather fell. I don't suppose I've a chicken in the swamp
that can go as close heaven as those big, black fellows, and then----"
Freckles' voice dragged and he hesitated.
"Then what?" interestedly urged McLean.
"He was loving her so," answered Freckles in a hushed
voice. "I know it looked awful funny, and I laughed and told
on him, but if I'd taken time to think I don't believe I'd have
done it. You see, I've seen such a little bit of loving in me life.
You easily can be understanding that at the Home it was every day
the old story of neglect and desertion. Always people that didn't
even care enough for their children to keep them, so you see, sir,
I had to like him for trying so hard to make her know how he loved
her. Of course, they're only birds, but if they are caring for each
other like that, why, it's just the same as people, ain't it?"
Freckles lifted his brave, steady eyes to the Boss.
"If anybody loved me like that, Mr. McLean, I wouldn't be spending
any time on how they looked or moved. All I'd be thinking of would
be how they felt toward me. If they will stay, I'll be caring as
much for them as any chickens I have. If I did laugh at them I thought
he was just fine!"
The face of McLean was a study; but the honest eyes of the boy were
so compelling that he found himself answering: "You are right,
Freckles. He's a gentleman, isn't he? And the only real chicken
you have. Of course he'll remain! The Limberlost will be paradise
for his family. And now, Freckles, what has been the trouble all
spring? You have done your work as faithfully as anyone could ask,
but I can't help seeing that there is something wrong. Are you tired
of your job?"
"I love it," answered Freckles. "It will almost break
me heart when the gang comes and begins tearing up the swamp and
scaring away me chickens."
"Then what is the trouble?" insisted McLean.
"I think, sir, it's been books," answered Freckles. "You
see, I didn't realize it meself until the bullfrog told me this
morning. I hadn't ever even heard about a place like this. Anyway,
I wasn't understanding how it would be, if I had. Being among these
beautiful things every day, I got so anxious like to be knowing
and naming them, that it got to eating into me and went and made
me near sick, when I was well as I could be. Of course, I learned
to read, write, and figure some at school, but there was nothing
there, or in any of the city that I ever got to see, that would
make a fellow even be dreaming of such interesting things as there
are here. I've seen the parks--but good Lord, they ain't even beginning
to be in it with the Limberlost! It's all new and strange to me.
I don't know a thing about any of it. The bullfrog told me to `find
out,' plain as day, and books are the only way; ain't they?"
"Of course," said McLean, astonished at himself for his
heartfelt relief. He had not guessed until that minute what it would
have meant to him to have Freckles give up. "You know enough
to study out what you want yourself, if you have the books; don't
you?"
"I am pretty sure I do," said Freckles. "I learned
all I'd the chance at in the Home, and me schooling was good as
far as it went. Wouldn't let you go past fourteen, you know. I always
did me sums perfect, and loved me history books. I had them almost
by heart. I never could get me grammar to suit them. They said it
was just born in me to go wrong talking, and if it hadn't been I
suppose I would have picked it up from the other children; but I'd
the best voice of any of them in the Home or at school. I could
knock them all out singing. I was always leader in the Home, and
once one of the superintendents gave me carfare and let me go into
the city and sing in a boys' choir. The master said I'd the swatest
voice of them all until it got rough like, and then he made me quit
for awhile, but he said it would be coming back by now, and I'm
railly thinking it is, sir, for I've tried on the line a bit of
late and it seems to go smooth again and lots stronger. That and
me chickens have been all the company I've been having, and it will
be all I'll want if I can have some books and learn the real names
of things, where they come from, and why they do such interesting
things. It's been fretting me more than I knew to be shut up here
among all these wonders and not knowing a thing. I wanted to ask
you what some books would cost me, and if you'd be having the goodness
to get me the right ones. I think I have enough money"
Freckles offered his account-book and the Boss studied it gravely.
"You needn't touch your account, Freckles," he said. "Ten
dollars from this month's pay will provide you everything you need
to start on. I will write a friend in Grand Rapids today to select
you the very best and send them at once."
Freckles' eyes were shining.
"Never owned a book in me life!" he said. "Even me
schoolbooks were never mine. Lord! How I used to wish I could have
just one of them for me very own! Won't it be fun to see me sawbird
and me little yellow fellow looking at me from the pages of a book,
and their real names and all about them printed alongside? How long
will it be taking, sir?"
"Ten days should do it nicely," said McLean. Then, seeing
Freckles' lengthening face, he added: "I'll have Duncan bring
you a ten-bushel store-box the next time he goes to town. He can
haul it to the west entrance and set it up wherever you want it.
You can put in your spare time filling it with the specimens you
find until the books come, and then you can study out what you have.
I suspect you could collect specimens that I could send to naturalists
in the city and sell for you; things like that winged creature,
this morning. I don't know much in that line, but it must have been
a moth, and it might have been rare. I've seen them by the thousand
in museums, and in all nature I don't remember rarer coloring than
their wings. I'll order you a butterfly-net and box and show you
how scientists pin specimens. Possibly you can make a fine collection
of these swamp beauties. It will be all right for you to take a
pair of different moths and butterflies, but I don't want to hear
of your killing any birds. They are protected by heavy fines."
McLean rode away leaving Freckles staring aghast. Then he saw the
point and smiled. Standing on the trail, he twirled the feather
and thought over the morning.
"Well, if life ain't getting to be worth living!" he said
wonderingly. "Biggest streak of luck I ever had! `Bout time
something was coming my way, but I wouldn't ever thought anybody
could strike such magnificent prospects through only a falling feather."