Bellefonte, Pa., October 4, 1912.
0
FRECKLES
By
Gene Stratton
Porter
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY DOUBLEDAY, PACE
& CO.
SYNOPSIS.
Freckles, a homeless boy, is hired by
Boss McLean to guard the expensive
ber in the Limberlost from timber thieves.
Freckles does his work faithfully, makes
friends with the birds and yearns to know
more about nature. He lives with Mr.
and Mrs. Duncan.
He resolves to get books and educate
himself. He becomes interested in a huge
palr of vultures and calls his bird friends
his “chickens.”
Some of the trees he is guarding are
worth $1,000 each. Freckles’ books arrive.
He receives a call from Wessner.
Wessner attempts to bribe Freckles to
betray his trust, and Freckles whips him.
Mclean ovevhears them and witnesses the
it.
Freckles’ honesty saves a precious tree.
He finds the nest of the vultures and is
visited by a beautiful young girl.
Bhe calls Freckles McLean's son. Freckles
calls her “the angel” and helps the Bird
Woman in taking photographs. McLean
promises to adopt Freckles.
angel
friendly. Assisted by the Bird Woman,
they drive Weasner and Black Jack, tim-
ber thieves, from the Limberlost.
McLean fears more trouble, but Freckles
insists upon being the sole guard of the
Hinger. Freckles calls upon the angel's
ther.
The angel receives him as her equal, and
her father is kind. Mrs. Duncan has ex-
citing adventures in the Limberlost.
The Bird Woman and the angel again
visit Freckles, and Freckles falls in love
with the angel. The angel kisses him.
Freckles is bound and gagged by Black
Jack's gang, and the timber thieves start
felling a very valuable tree.
Wessner is to kill Freckles after the
tree is stolen. The angel makes a daring
effort to save Freckles and the tree.
McLean's men, notified by the angel,
rush to save Freckles. All the timber
thieves except Black Jack are captured.
[Continued from last week.]
CHAPTER XVII
NURRING A HEARTACHE,
‘LEAN rode down to the Lim-
herlost and, stopping In the
shade, sat waiting for
Freckles.
Aiong the north line came Freckles,
fairly staggering. When he turned east
and reached Sleepy Snake creek. slid-
ing through the swale like the long
black snake for which it was named,
he sat down on the bridge and closed
his burning eyes, but they would not
stay shut. As if pulied by wires, the
beavy lids flew open and the outraged
nerves and muscles of his body
danced, twitched and tingled.
He bent forward and idly watched
the limpid little stream flowing be-
neat his feet. Stretching back into
the swale, it came creeping between
an impenetrable wall of magnificent
wild flowers, vines and ferns. Milk-
weed. goldenrod, fironwort,* fringed
gentians, cardinal flowers and turtle
head stood on the very edge of the
creek, and every flower of them grew
a double in the water. Wild clematis
erowned with snow the heads of trees
scattered here and there along the
bank.
Freckles sat so still that presently
the brim of his hat was covered with
snake feeders, rasping their crisp
wings and singing as they rested.
Some of them settled on the club and
one on his shoulder. He was so quiet
and feathers, fur and gauze were so
accustomed to him that all about the
swale they went on with their daily
life and forgot he was there.
The heron family waded about the
mouth of the creek. Freckles idly
wondered whether the nerve racking
rasps they occasionally emitted indi-
cated domestic felicity or a raging
quarrel. A sheitpoke, with flaring
crest, went stalking across a bare
space near the creek's mouth. A
stately brown bittern waded out into
the clear flowing water, lifting his feet
high at every step and setting them
down gingerly, as if he dreaded wet-
ting them, and, with slightly parted
beak, stood eagerly watching about
him for worms. - Behind him were
some mighty trees of the swamp
above, and below the bank glowed a
solid wall of goldenrod.
No wonder the ancients had chosen
yellow as the color to represent vic-
tory, for the fierce, conquering hue of
the sun was in it. They had done well,
too, in choosing purple as the color of
royalty. It was a dignified, compelling
color, and in its warm tone there was
a hint of blood.
It was the Limberlost's hour to pro-
claim her sovereignty and triumph,
Everywhere she flaunted her yellow
banner and trailed the purple of her
mantle, that was paler in the thistle
heads, took on strength in the first
opening asters, and glowed and burned
in the ironwort.
Compellingly beautiful was the Lim-
berlost, but cruel withal; far back in
there bleached the uncoffined bones of
her victims, and she had missed cra-
dling him, oh, so narrowly!
Below the turtle log, a dripping silver
gray head, with shining eyes, was cau-
tiously lifted, and Freckles’ hand slid
around to his revolver. Higher and
of
Freckles looked at his shaking
and doubted, but he
forces, the shot rang out,
lay still. He hurried down
to lift it.
alize the fact that he was well up to
the limit of human endurance. He
could bear it little, if any, longer.
Every hour the face of the angel wav-
ered before him, and behind it the
awful distorted image of Black Jack.
as he swore to the punishment he
would mete out to her.
Freckles stopped when he came to
the first guard, and telling him of his
luck, asked him to go for the otter and
carry it up to the cabin, as he was
anxious to meet McLean. Freckles
passed the second guard without seeing
him, and hurried up to the boss. He
stood silent under the eyes of McLean,
The boss was dumfounded. Mrs.
Duncan had led him to expect that he
tim- | would find Freckles in a bad way, but
this was almost deathly. The fact
was apparent that the boy scarcely
knew what he was doing. His eyes
had a glazed, farsighted look in them,
that wrung the heart of the man that
loved him. Without a thought of pre-
liminaries McLean leaned in the sad
dle and drew Freckles up to him.
“My poor lad!” he sald. “My poor,
dear lad; tell me, and we will try to
right it!"
Freckles had twisted his fingers in
Nellie's mane. At the kind words his
face dropped on' McLean's thigh and
he shook with a nervous chill. McLean
gathered him closer and waited.
“Freckles,” said McLean at last,
“will you tell me, or must I set to
work in the dark and try to find the
trouble?”
“Oh, I want to tell you! I must tell
you, sir,” shuddered Freckles. “I can-
not be hearing it the day out alone.
I was comi.z to yon when IT remim-
bered you would be here.”
He lifted his face and gazed off
across the swale, with his jaws set
hard a minute, as if gathering his
forces. Then he spoke,
“It's the angel, sir,” he said.
Instinctively McLean's grip on him
tightened.
“l tried hard the other day,” said
Freckles, “and 1 couldn't seem to
make you see. It's only that there
hasn't been an hour. waking or sleep-
ing, since the day she parted the
bushes and looked into me room, that
the face of her hasn’t been before me
in all the tinderness, beauty and mis-
chief of it. She talked to me friendly
like. She trusted me entireiy to take
right care of her. She helped me with
things nbout me hooks. She tralted
me like | was born a gintleman, and
shared with me like | was of her
own blood. She walked the streets of
the town with me before her friends
with all the pride of a queen. She
forgot herself and didn't mind the
Bird Woman, and run big risks to help
me out that first day, sir. This last
time she walked into that gang of
murderers, took their leader and
twisted him to the will of her. She
outdone him and raced the life almost
out of her trying to save me.
“Since I can remimber, whatever the
thing was that happened to me in the
beginning has been me curse. I've
been bitter, hard and smarting under
it hopelessly. She came by and found
me voice and put hope of life and suc-
cess like other men into me in spite of
it
Freckles held up his maimed arm.
“Look at it, sir!” he said.
sand times I've cursed it, hanging
there helpless. She took it on
street, before all the people, just as
she didn’t see that it was
hide and shrink
again I've had the
if I didn’t entirely forget it, that she
didn’t see it was gone and I must pull
her sleeve and be pointing it
her. Her touch on it
like, at times since I've
your son she couldn't be treating me
more as her equal, and she can’t help
knowing you ain't truly me father.
Nobody can know the ugliness or the
ignorance of me better than I do and
all me lack of birth, home, relatives
and money and what's it all to her?”
Freckles stepped back from McLean,
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eww
herself past bearing to save me
such an easy thing as death!
. here’s me, a man, a big, strong
and letting her live under that
fearful oath. so worse than any death
‘twould be for her, and lifting not a
finger to save her. 1 cannot bear fit,
sir. It's killing me by inches! If any
evil comes to her through Black Jack
it comes from her angel like goodness
to me, Somewhere he's hiding!
Somewhere he is waiting his chance!
Somewhere he is reaching out for her!
I tell you TI cannot, T dare not be bear-
ing it longer!”
“Freckles, be quiet!" said McLean,
his eyes humid.
understand. [I know the angel's father
well. I will go to him at once. I have
transacted business with him for the
last three years. | will make him see!
I am only just beginning to realize
your agony and the real danger there
is for the angel. 1 will see that she
is fully protected every hour of the
day and night until Jack is located and
disposed of. And 1 promise you further
that If I fall to move her father or
make him understand the danger |
will maintain a guard over her until
Jack is caught.”
McLean slid from Nellie's back, and
went to examine the otter.
“What do you want to do with It,
Freckles?’ asked McLean. “Do yon
known that it is very valuable?”
“l was for almost praying so, sir,”
sald Freckles. “As I saw it coming up
the bank 1 thought this: Once some-
where in a book there was a picture of
a young girl, and she was just a breath
like the beautifulness of the angel. Her
hands were in a muff as big as her
body, and I thought it was so pretty.
I think she was some queen, or tho
like. Do you suppose I could have this
skin tanned and made into such a muff
as that—an enormous big one, sir?"
“Of course you can,” said McLean.
“That's a fine iden and it's easy
enough. It would be a mighty fine
thing for you to give to the angel as
a little reminder of the Limberlost be-
fore it is despoiled, and as a souvenir
of her trip for you.”
Freckles lifted a face with a glow of
happy color creeping into it and eyes
lighting with a former brightness.
Throwing his arms about McLean, he
cried “Oh, how I love you! Oh, I
wish I could make you know how 1
love you!" ‘
McLean strained him to his breast.
“God bless you, Freckles,” he said.
“l do know! We're going to have
some good old times out of this world
together, and we can’t begin too soon.
Would you rather sleep first, or get a
bite of lunch and have the drive with
me, and then rest? | don’t know but
sleep will come sooner and deeper to
take the ride and bave your mind set
at ease before you lie down. Suppose
you go."
“Suppose ] do,” said Freckles, with a
glimmer of the old light in his eyes
and newly feund strength to shoulder
the otter. Together they turned into
the swale.
McLean noticed and spoke of the big
black chickens.
“They've been hanging round out!
there for several days past,” said
Freckles. “I'll tell you what I think
it means. I think the old rattler has
killed something too big for him to
swallow, and he's keeping guard and
won't let me chickens have it. I'm
just sure, from the way the birds have
acted out there all summer, that it is
the rattler's den. You watch them
[Continued on page 7, Col. 1.)
———
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