The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter

by Gene Stratton-Porter

  That winter held the first hours of real happiness in Freckles’s life. He was free. He was doing a man’s work faithfully, through every rigor of rain, snow, and blizzard. He was gathering a wonderful strength of body, paying his way, and saving money. Every man of the gang and of that locality knew that he was under the protection of McLean, who was a power; this had the effect of smoothing Freckles’s path in many directions.

  Mrs. Duncan showed him that individual kindness for which his hungry heart was longing. She had a hot drink ready for him when he came from a freezing day on the trail. She knit him a heavy mitten for his left hand, and devised a way to sew and pad the right sleeve that protected the maimed arm in bitter weather. She patched his clothing—frequently torn by the wire—and saved kitchen scraps for his birds, not because she either knew or cared anything about them, but because she herself was close enough to the swamp to be touched by its utter loneliness. When Duncan laughed at her for this, she retorted: “My God, mannie, if Freckles hadna the birds and the beasts he would be always alone. It was never meant for a human being to be so solitary. He’d get touched in the head if he hadna them to think for and to talk to.”

  “How much answer do ye think he gets to his talkin’, lass?” laughed Duncan.

  “He gets the answer that keeps the eye bright, the heart happy, and the feet walking faithful the rough path he’s set them in,” answered Mrs. Duncan earnestly.

  Duncan walked away appearing very thoughtful. The next morning he gave an ear from the corn he was shelling for his chickens to Freckles, and told him to carry it to his wild chickens in the Limberlost. Freckles laughed delightedly.

  “Me chickens!” he said. “Why didn’t I ever think of that before? Of course they are! They are just little, brightly colored cocks and hens! But ‘wild’ is no good. What would you say to me ‘wild chickens’ being a good deal tamer than yours here in your yard?”

  “Hoot, lad!” cried Duncan.

  “Make yours light on your head and eat out of your hands and pockets,” challenged Freckles.

  “Go and tell your fairy tales to the wee people! They’re juist brash on believin’ things,” said Duncan. “Ye canna invent any story too big to stop them from callin’ for a bigger.”

  “I dare you to come see!” retorted Freckles.

  “Take ye!” said Duncan. “If ye make juist ane bird licht on your heid or eat frae your hand, ye are free to help yoursel’ to my corn-crib and wheat bin the rest of the winter.”

  Freckles sprang in air and howled in glee.

  “Oh, Duncan! You’re too aisy,” he cried. “When will you come?”

  “I’ll come next Sabbath,” said Duncan. “And I’ll believe the birds of the Limberlost are tame as barnyard fowl when I see it, and no sooner!”

  After that Freckles always spoke of the birds as his chickens, and the Duncans followed his example. The very next Sabbath, Duncan, with his wife and children, followed Freckles to the swamp. They saw a sight so wonderful it will keep them talking all the remainder of their lives, and make them unfailing friends of all the birds.

  Freckles’s chickens were awaiting him at the edge of the clearing. They cut the frosty air around his head into curves and circles of crimson, blue, and black. They chased each other from Freckles, and swept so closely themselves that they brushed him with their outspread wings.

  At their feeding-ground Freckles set down his old pail of scraps and swept the snow from a small level space with a broom improvised of twigs. As soon as his back was turned, the birds clustered over the food, snatching scraps to carry to the nearest bushes. Several of the boldest, a big crow and a couple of jays, settled on the rim and feasted at leisure, while a cardinal, that hesitated to venture, fumed and scolded from a twig overhead.

  Then Freckles scattered his store. At once the ground resembled the spread mantle of Montezuma, except that this mass of gaily colored feathers was on the backs of living birds. While they feasted, Duncan gripped his wife’s arm and stared in astonishment; for from the bushes and dry grass, with gentle cheeping and queer, throaty chatter, as if to encourage each other, came flocks of quail. Before anyone saw it arrive, a big gray rabbit sat in the midst of the feast, contentedly gnawing a cabbage-leaf.

  “Weel, I be drawed on!” came Mrs. Duncan’s tense whisper.

  “Shu-shu,” cautioned Duncan.

  Lastly Freckles removed his cap. He began filling it with handfuls of wheat from his pockets. In a swarm the grain-eaters arose around him as a flock of tame pigeons. They perched on his arms and the cap, and in the stress of hunger, forgetting all caution, a brilliant cock cardinal and an equally gaudy jay fought for a perching-place on his head.

  “Weel, I’m beat,” muttered Duncan, forgetting the silence imposed on his wife. “I’ll hae to give in. ‘Seein’ is believin’.’ A man wad hae to see that to believe it. We mauna let the Boss miss that sight, for it’s a chance will no likely come twice in a life. Everything is snowed under and thae craturs near starved, but trustin’ Freckles that complete they are tamer than our chickens. Look hard, bairns!” he whispered. “Ye winna see the like o’ yon again, while God lets ye live. Notice their color against the ice and snow, and the pretty skippin’ ways of them! And spunky! Weel, I’m heat fair!”

  Freckles emptied his cap, turned his pockets and scattered his last grain. Then he waved his watching friends good-bye and started down the timber-line.

  A week later, Duncan and Freckles arose from breakfast to face the bitterest morning of the winter. When Freckles, warmly capped and gloved, stepped to the corner of the kitchen for his scrap-pail, he found a big pan of steaming boiled wheat on the top of it. He wheeled to Mrs. Duncan with a shining face.

  “Were you fixing this warm food for me chickens or yours?” he asked.

  “It’s for yours, Freckles,” she said. “I was afeared this cold weather they wadna lay good without a warm bite now and then.”

  Duncan laughed as he stepped to the other room for his pipe; but Freckles faced Mrs. Duncan with a trace of every pang of starved mother-hunger he ever had suffered written large on his homely, splotched, narrow features.

  “Oh, how I wish you were my mother!” he cried.

  Mrs. Duncan attempted an echo of her husband’s laugh.

  “Lord love the lad!” she exclaimed. “Why, Freckles, are ye no bright enough to learn without being taught by a woman that I am your mither? If a great man like yoursel’ dinna ken that, learn it now and ne’er forget it. Ance a woman is the wife of any man, she becomes wife to all men for having had the wifely experience she kens! Ance a man-child has beaten his way to life under the heart of a woman, she is mither to all men, for the hearts of mithers are everywhere the same. Bless ye, laddie, I am your mither!”

  She tucked the coarse scarf she had knit for him closer over his chest and pulled his cap lower over his ears, but Freckles, whipping it off and holding it under his arm, caught her rough, reddened hand and pressed it to his lips in a long kiss. Then he hurried away to hide the happy, embarrassing tears that were coming straight from his swelling heart.

  Mrs. Duncan, sobbing unrestrainedly, swept into the adjoining room and threw herself into Duncan’s arms.

  “Oh, the puir lad!” she wailed. “Oh, the puir mither-hungry lad! He breaks my heart!”

  Duncan’s arms closed convulsively around his wife. With a big, brown hand he lovingly stroked her rough, sorrel hair.

  “Sarah, you’re a guid woman!” he said. “You’re a michty guid woman! Ye hae a way o’ speakin’ out at times that’s like the inspired prophets of the Lord. If that had been put to me, now, I’d ’a’ felt all I kent how to and been keen enough to say the richt thing; but dang it, I’d ’a’ stuttered and stammered and got naething out that would ha’ done onybody a mite o’ good. But ye, Sarah! Did ye see his face, woman? Ye sent him off lookin’ leke a white light of holiness had passed ower and settled on him. Ye sent the lad away too happy for mortal words, Sarah. And ye made me that proud o�
�� ye! I wouldna trade ye an’ my share o’ the Limberlost with ony king ye could mention.”

  He relaxed his clasp, and setting a heavy hand on each shoulder, he looked straight into her eyes.

  “Ye’re prime, Sarah! Juist prime!” he said.

  Sarah Duncan stood alone in the middle of her two-roomed log cabin and lifted a bony, clawlike pair of hands, reddened by frequent immersion in hot water, cracked and chafed by exposure to cold, black-lined by constant battle with swamp-loam, calloused with burns, and stared at them wonderingly.

  “Pretty-lookin’ things ye are!” she whispered. “But ye hae juist been kissed. And by such a man! Fine as God ever made at His verra best. Duncan wouldna trade wi’ a king! Na! Nor I wadna trade with a queen wi’ a palace, an’ velvet gowns, an’ diamonds big as hazelnuts, an’ a hundred visitors a day into the bargain. Ye’ve been that honored I’m blest if I can bear to souse ye in dish-water. Still, that kiss winna come off! Naething can take it from me, for it’s mine till I dee. Lord, if I amna proud! Kisses on these old claws! Weel, I be drawed on!”

  Chapter 3

  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’s 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’s “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’s 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’s 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?”