The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter

by Gene Stratton-Porter

  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’s 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’s 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.”

  Chapter 4

  Wherein Freckles Faces Trouble Bravely and Opens the Way for New Experiences

  On Duncan’s return from his next trip to town there was a big store-box loaded on the back of his wagon. He drove to the west entrance of the swamp, set the box on a stump that Freckles had selected in a beautiful, sheltered place, and made it secure on its foundations with a tree at its back.

  “It seems most a pity to nail into that tree,” said Duncan. “I haena the time to examine into the grain of it, but it looks as if it might be a rare ane. Anyhow, the nailin’ winna hurt it deep, and havin’ the case by it will make it safer if it is a guid ane.”

  “Isn’t it an oak?” asked Freckles.

  “Ay,” said Duncan. “It looks like it might be ane of thae fine-grained white anes that mak’ such grand furniture.”

  When the body of the case was secure, Duncan made a door from the lid and fastened it with hinges. He drove a staple, screwed on a latch, and gave Freckles a small padlock—so that he might fasten in his treasures safely. He made a shelf at the top for his books, and last of all covered the case with oil-cloth.

  It was the first time in Freckles’s life that anyone ever had done that much for his pleasure, and it warmed his heart with pure joy. If the interior of the box already had been covered with the rarest treasures of the Limberlost he could have been no happier.

  When the big teamster stood back to look at his work he laughingly quoted, “‘Neat, but no’ gaudy,’ as McLean says. All we’re, needing now is a coat of paint to make a cupboard that would turn Sarah green with envy. Ye’ll find that safe an’ dry, lad, an’ that’s all that’s needed.”

  “Mr. Duncan,” said Freckles, “I don’t know why you are being so mighty good to me; but if you have any jobs at the cabin that I could do for you or Mrs. Duncan, hours off the line, it would make me mighty happy.”

  Duncan laughed. “Ye needna feel ye are obliged to me, lad. Ye mauna think I could take a half-day off in the best hauling season and go to town for boxes to rig up, and spend of my little for fixtures.”

  “I knew Mr. McLean sent you,” said Freckles, his eyes wide and bright with happiness. “It’s so good of him. How I wish I could do something that would please him as much!”

  “Why, Freckles,” said Duncan, as he knelt and began collecting his tools, “I canna see that it will hurt ye to be told that ye are doing every day a thing that pleases the Boss as much as anything ye could do. Ye’re being uncommon faithful, lad, and honest as old Father Time. McLean is trusting ye as he would his own flesh and blood.”

  “Oh, Duncan!” cried the happy boy. “Are you sure?”

  “Why I know,” answered Duncan. “I wadna venture to say so else. In those first days he cautioned me na to tell ye, but now he wadna care. D’ye ken, Freckles, that s
ome of the single trees ye are guarding are worth a thousand dollars?”

  Freckles caught his breath and stood speechless.

  “Ye see,” said Duncan, “that’s why they maun be watched so closely. They tak’, say, for instance, a burl maple—bird’s eye they call it in the factory, because it’s full o’ wee knots and twists that look like the eye of a bird. They saw it out in sheets no muckle thicker than writin’ paper. Then they make up the funiture out of cheaper wood and cover it with the maple—veneer, they call it. When it’s all done and polished ye never saw onythin’ grander. Gang into a retail shop the next time ye are in town and see some. By sawin’ it thin that way they get finish for thousands of dollars’ worth of furniture from a single tree. If ye dinna watch faithful, and Black Jack gets out a few he has marked, it means the loss of more money than ye ever dreamed of, lad. The other night, down at camp, some son of Balaam was suggestin’ that ye might be sellin’ the Boss out to Jack and lettin’ him tak’ the trees secretly, and nobody wad ever ken till the gang gets here.”

  A wave of scarlet flooded Freckles’s face and he blazed hotly at the insult.

  “And the Boss,” continued Duncan, coolly ignoring Freckles’s anger, “he lays back just as cool as cowcumbers an’ says: ‘I’ll give a thousand dollars to ony man that will show me a fresh stump when we reach the Limberlost,’ says he. Some of the men just snapped him op that they’d find some. So you see bow the Boss is trustin’ ye, lad.”

  “I am gladder than I can ever expriss,” said Freckles. “And now will I be walking double time to keep some of them from cutting a tree to get all that money!”

  “Mither o’ Moses!” howled Duncan. “Ye can trust the Scotch to bungle things a’thegither. McLean was only meanin’ to show ye all confidence and honor. He’s gone and set a high price for some dirty whelp to ruin ye. I was just tryin’ to show ye how he felt toward ye, and I’ve gone an’ give ye that worry to bear. Damn the Scotch! They’re so slow an’ so dumb!”

  “Exciptin’ prisint company?” sweetly inquired Freckles.

  “No!” growled Duncan. “Headin’ the list! He’d nae business to set a price on ye, lad, for that’s about the amount of it, an’ I’d nae right to tell ye. We’ve both done ye ill, an’ both meanin’ the verra best. Juist what I’m always sayin’ to Sarah.”

  “I am mighty proud of what you have been telling me, Duncan,” said Freckles. “I need the warning, sure. For with the books coming I might be timpted to neglect me work when double watching is needed. Thank you more than I can say for putting me on to it. What you’ve told me may be the saving of me. I won’t stop for dinner now. I’ll be getting along the east line, and when I come around about three, maybe Mother Duncan will let me have a glass of milk and a bite of something.”

  “Ye see now!” cried Duncan in disgust. “Ye’ll start on that seven-mile tramp with na bite to stay your stomach. What was it I told ye?”

  “You told me that the Scotch had the hardest heads and the softest hearts of any people that’s living,” answered Freckles.

  Duncan grunted in gratified disapproval.

  Freckles picked up his club and started down the line, whistling cheerily, for he had an unusually long repertoire upon which to draw.

  Duncan went straight to the lower camp, and calling McLean aside, repeated the conversation verbatim, ending: “And nae matter what happens now or ever, dinna ye dare let onythin’ make ye believe that Freckles hasna guarded faithful as ony man could.”

  “I don’t think anything could shake my faith in the lad,” answered McLean.

  Freckles was whistling merrily. He kept one eye religiously on the line. The other he divided between the path, his friends of the wire, and a search of the sky for his latest arrivals. Every day since their coming he had seen them, either hanging as small, black clouds above the swamp or bobbing over logs and trees with their queer, tilting walk. Whenever he could spare time, he entered the swamp and tried to make friends with them, for they were the tamest of all his unnumbered subjects. They ducked, dodged, and ambled around him, over logs and bushes, and not even a near approach would drive them to flight.

  For two weeks he had found them circling over the Limberlost regularly, but one morning the female was missing and only the big black chicken hung sentinel above the swamp. His mate did not reappear in the following days, and Freckles grew very anxious. He spoke of it to Mrs. Duncan, and she quieted his fears by raising a delightful hope in their stead.

  “Why, Freckles, if it’s the hen-bird ye are missing, it’s ten to one she’s safe,” she said. “She’s laid, and is setting, ye silly! Watch him and mark whaur he lichts. Then follow and find the nest. Some Sabbath we’ll all gang see it.”

  Accepting this theory, Freckles began searching for the nest. Because these “chickens” were large, as the hawks, he looked among the treetops until he almost sprained the back of his neck. He had half the crow and hawk nests in the swamp located. He searched for this nest instead of collecting subjects for his case. He found the pair the middle of one forenoon on the elm where he had watched their love-making. The big black chicken was feeding his mate; so it was proved that they were a pair, they were both alive, and undoubtedly she was brooding. After that Freckles’s nest-hunting continued with renewed zeal, but as he had no idea where to look and Duncan could offer no helpful suggestion, the nest was no nearer to being found.

  Coming from a long day on the trail, Freckles saw Duncan’s children awaiting him much closer the swale than they usually ventured, and from their wild gestures he knew that something had happened. He began to run, but the cry that reached him was: “The books have come!”

  How they hurried! Freckles lifted the youngest to his shoulder, the second took his club and dinner pail, and when they reached Mrs. Duncan they found her at work on a big box. She had loosened the lid, and then she laughingly sat on it.

  “Ye canna have a peep in here until ye have washed and eaten supper,” she said. “It’s all ready on the table. Ance ye begin on this, ye’ll no be willin’ to tak’ your nose o’ it till bedtime, and I willna get my work done the nicht. We’ve eaten long ago.”

  It was difficult work, but Freckles smiled bravely. He made himself neat, swallowed a few bites, then came so eagerly that Mrs. Duncan yielded, although she said she very well knew all the time that his supper would be spoiled.

  Lifting the lid, they removed the packing and found in that box books on birds, trees, flowers, moths, and butterflies. There was also one containing Freckles’s bullfrog, true to life. Besides these were a butterfly-net, a naturalist’s tin specimen-box, a bottle of cyanide, a box of cotton, a paper of long, steel specimen-pins, and a letter telling what all these things were and how to use them.

  At the discovery of each new treasure, Freckles shouted: “Will you be looking at this, now?”

  Mrs. Duncan cried: “Weel, I be drawed on!”

  The eldest boy turned a somersault for every extra, while the baby, trying to follow his example, bunched over in a sidewise sprawl and cut his foot on the axe with which his mother had prized up the box-lid. That sobered them, they carried the books indoors. Mrs. Duncan had a top shelf in her closet cleared for them, far above the reach of meddling little fingers.

  When Freckles started for the trail next morning, the shining new specimen-box flashed on his back. The black “chicken,” a mere speck in the blue, caught the gleam of it. The folded net hung beside the boy’s hatchet, and the bird book was in the box. He walked the line and tested each section scrupulously, watching every foot of the trail, for he was determined not to slight his work; but if ever a boy “made haste slowly” in a hurry, it was Freckles that morning. When at last he reached the space he had cleared and planted around his case, his heart swelled with the pride of possessing even so much that he could call his own, while his quick eyes feasted on the beauty of it.

  He had made a large room with the door of the case set even with one side of it. On three sides, fine big bus
hes of wild rose climbed to the lower branches of the trees. Part of his walls were mallow, part alder, thorn, willow, and dogwood. Below there filled in a solid mass of pale pink sheep-laurel, and yellow St. John’s wort, while the amber threads of the dodder interlaced everywhere. At one side the swamp came close, here cattails grew in profusion. In front of them he had planted a row of water-hyacinths without disturbing in the least the state of their azure bloom, and where the ground arose higher for his floor, a row of foxfire, that soon would be open.

  To the left he had discovered a queer natural arrangement of the trees, that grew to giant size and were set in a gradually narrowing space so that a long, open vista stretched away until lost in the dim recesses of the swamp. A little trimming of underbush, rolling of dead logs, levelling of floor and carpeting with moss, made it easy to understand why Freckles had named this the “cathedral”; yet he never had been taught that “the groves were God’s first temples.”

  On either side of the trees that constituted the first arch of this dim vista of the swamp he planted ferns that grew waist-high thus early in the season, and so skilfully the work had been done that not a frond drooped because of the change. Opposite, he cleared a space and made a flower bed. He filled one end with every delicate, lacy vine and fern he could transplant successfully. The body of the bed was a riot of color. Here he set growing dainty blue-eyed-Marys and blue-eyed grass side by side. He planted harebells; violets, blue, white, and yellow; wild geranium, cardinal-flower, columbine, pink snake’s mouth, buttercups, painted trilliums, and orchis. Here were blood-root, moccasin-flower, hepatica, pitcher-plant, Jack-in-the-pulpit, and every other flower of the Limberlost that was in bloom or bore a bud presaging a flower. Every day saw the addition of new specimens. The place would have driven a botanist wild with envy.

  On the line side he left the bushes thick for concealment, entering by a narrow path he and Duncan had cleared in setting up the case. He called this the front door, though he used every precaution to hide it. He built rustic seats between several of the trees, leveled the floor, and thickly carpeted it with rank, heavy, woolly-dog moss. Around the case he planted wild clematis, bittersweet, and wild-grapevines, and trained them over it until it was almost covered. Every day he planted new flowers, cut back rough bushes, and coaxed out graceful ones. His pride in his room was very great, but he had no idea how surprisingly beautiful it would appear to anyone who had not witnessed its growth and construction.