coe
Bellefonte, Pa., October 25, 1912.
0
FRECKLES
By
Gene Stratton-
Porter
COPYRIGHT. 1904, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE
& CO.
SYNOPSIS.
Freckles, a homeless boy, is hired by
Boss McLean to guard the expensive tim-
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.
Heo resolves to get books and educate
himself.
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 overhears them and witnesses the
Freckles’ honesty saves a precious tree,
He finds the nest of the vultures and is
visited by a beautiful young girl.
8he calls Freckles McLean's son. Freckles
calls her “the angel” and helps the Bird
Woman in taking photographs. McLean
promises to adopt Freckles.
Freckles and the angel become very
friendly. Assisted by the Bird Woman,
they drive Wessner and Black Jack, tim-
ber thieves, from the Limberlost.
McRean fears more trouble, but Freckles
insists upon being the sole guard of the
timber. Freckles calls upon the angel's
father.
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
feliing 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.
Freckles guards the angel against Black
Jack's vengeance. He tells McLean of his
hopeless love for the angel.
Black Jack is killed by a rattlesnake.
The Bird Woman gets a photograph of
the baby vulture. Freckies and the ange!
find & valuable tree.
[Continued from last week.]
“Dear Freckles,” she said, “there Is
a story In your eyes this morning,
tell me?”
Freckles drew a
breath.
“Angel,” he begged, “be generous!
Be thinking of me a little. I'm so
homesick and worn out, dear angel,
be giving me back me promise. Let
me go?”
“Why, Freckles!" faltered the angel.
“You don't know what you are asking.
‘Let you go [I cancot. 1 love you
better than any one, Freckles, 1 think
you are the very finest person 1 ever
knew. 1 have our lives all planned, I
want you to go to be educated and
learn all there is to know about sing:
ing just as soon as you are well
enough. By the time you have com
pleted your education I shall have
finished college, and then 1 want,” she
choked on it a second. “I want you to
be my real knight, Freckles, and come
to me and tell me that you—like me—a
little. 1 have been counting on you
for my sweetheart from the very. first,
Freckles, | can't give you up unless
you don’t like me. Rut yon do like
me—just a little—don't you, Freckles?"
Freckies lay whiter than the cover-
let, his eyes on the ceiling and his
breath wheezing. ‘I'he angel awaited
his ahswer a second, and when none
came, she dropped ber crimsoning face
beside him on the pillow and whis-
long, wavering
pered:
“Freckles, I-I'm trying to make love
to you. Can't you help me just a little
bit? it's awful bard all alone! 1
don't know how, when | really mean
it, but Freckles, I love you. 1 must
have you, and now 1 guess—I guess
maybe I'd better kiss you next.”
She bravely laid her feverish, quiv-
ering lips on his. Her breath, like
clover bloom, was in bis wostrils, and
her hair touched his face.
“Freckles,” she panted, “Freckles!
1 didn’t think it was in you to be |
mean!"
“Mean, angel! Mean to you?" gasp-
ed Freckles.
“Yes,” sald the angel, “downright
mean. When one kisses you, if youn
bad any mercy at all you'd kiss back,
Just a little bit. Now, I'm going to
try it over, and | want you to help me
a little. You aren't too sick to help
me just a little, Freckles?”
—
CHAPTER XXI.
--
She
hair and held water to his lips.
t seemed an age before he reached for
took his hand and leaned
upon It,
“Teil me, Freckles,” she whispered
He becomes interested in a huge’
“If 1 ean.” sald Freckles, in biting
agony. “It's just this. Angels are from |
tbove. Outcasts are from below
You've a sound body and you're bean
tifulest of ali. You have everything
that loving, careful raising and money
can give you. | have so much lesg
than nothing that | don’t suppose |
had any right to be horn, It's a sure
thing—nobody wanted me afterward,
80, of course, they didn’t before Some
of them shoulda have been telling you
long ago.”
“If that's all you have to tell,
Freckles, I've known that quite
awhile,” said the angel stoutly. “Mr.
McLean told my father. and he told
me. That only makes me love you
more, to pay for all you've missed.”
“Then I'm wondering at you.” said
Freckles, in a voice of awe. “Can't
You see that if you were willing and
your father would come and offer you
to me, | couldn't be touching the
soles of your feet, in love—me, whose
people brawled over me, cut off me
hand, and throwed me away to freeze
and to die! Me, who has no name
Just as much because I've no right
to any. as because 1 don’t know it.
When 1 was little, | planned to find
me father and mother when I grew
up. Now | know me mother deserted
me, and me father was maybe a thief
and surely a liar. The pity of me
suffering and the watching over me
has gone to your head, dear angel,
and it's me must be think. : for you.
If you could be forgetting me lost
hand, where I was raised, and that 1
had no name to give you, and if you
would be taking me as 1 am. some
day people such as mine must be
might come upon you. I used to pray
ivery night and morning and many
times the day to see me mother.
risk the sight of her.
possible, angel!
your dear head. Oh, do. for mercy
sake, kiss me once more and be let-
ting me go!"
“Not for a minute!” cried the angel.
'"Tain’t no ways
“Not for a minute, if those are all |
the reasons you kave. There are
thousands of young couples who come
to this country and start a family
with none of their relatives here. Chi-
cago is a big city, and grown people
could be wiped out in a lot of ways.
and who would there ever be to find
to whom their little children belonged?
It's all so plain to me. Oh, if I could
only make you see!"
She buried her face in the pillow and
presently lifted it. transfigured.
, “Now I have it!" she cried. “Oh. dear
heart! I can make it so plain! Freck-
les, can you imagine you see the old
Limberlost trail? Well, when we fol-
lowed it, you know, there were places
where ugly prickly thistles overgrew
the path, and you went ahead with
your club and bent them back to keep
them from stinging through my cloth-
ing. Other places there were great
shining pools where lovely, snow white
lilies grew, and you waded in and
gathered them for me. Oh, dear heart,
don’t you see? It's this! Everywhere
the wind carried that thistiedown. oth-
, er thistles sprang up and grew prick-
les and wherever those lily seeds sank
to the mire the pure white of other
lilies bloomed. But, Freckles, there
was never n place anywhere about the
Limberlost. or in the whole world.
‘where the thistledown floated and
sprang up and blossomed into white
lilies! Thistles grow from thisties and
lilies grow other lilies. Dear Freckies,
think hard! You must see it! You are
lily, straight through! You never, nev-
er could have drifted from the thistle
patch,
“Where did you get the courage to
£0 into the Limberlost and face its ter-
rors? You inberited it from the blood
of a brave father, dear heart. Where
did you get the pluck to hold for over
a year a job that few men would have
taken at all? You got it from a plucky
mother, you bravest of hoys. You wad-
ed single handed inte a man almost
twice your size and fought ike u
demon, just at the suggestion that you
could be deceptive and dishonest.
Could your mother or your father have
been untruthful? Here you are, so
hungry and starved out that you are
dying for love. Where did you get all
that capacity for loving? You didn't
inherit it from hardened. heartless
people who would distigure you and
| purposely leave you to die, that's one
sure thing. Yet you will spend miser-
able years torturing yourself with the
idea that your own mother might have
cut off that hand. Shame on you,
| Freckles! Your mother would have
done this"—
The angel deliberately turned back
| the cover, slipped up the sleeve and
! laid her lips on the scars.
“Freckles.” she cried. “come to your
senses! Be a thinking, reasoning
, man! You just must see it! Like
breeds like in this world!
be some sort of reproduction ot your
parents, and | am not afraid to vouch
for them, not for a minute.
“And then. too, if more proof is
needed here it is: Mr. McLean says
that you are the most perfect gen-
tleman he ever knew, and be has
i traveled the world over. ‘Then
there's your singing. | don’t believe
there ever was a mortal with a sweet-
er voice than yours, and while that
doesn’t prove anything there is a
point that does. Just the iittle train-
cent and ease with which you sing.
Somewhere in your close blood is a
marvelously trained vocalist: we
every one of us believe that, Freckles.
“Why does my father refer to yon
constantly as being of fine perceptions
and bonor? Hecause you are,
Freckles. Why does the Bird Woman
leave her precious work and stay
here to help look after you? | never
heard of losing any time over
| any ome it's because she loves
her
else,
Now |
I only pray to dle quickly and never |
It's a wildness of |
| cried.
you. And why does Mr Mclean turn
all of nis valuable business over io
hired men and watch over you per i
sonally? And why is he bunting ex- |
cuses every day fo spend money on |
you? My father says Mclean is fui |
Scotch close with a dollar. He is on |
hard headed business man. Freekies, |
and he is doing it becanse he finds |
You worthy of it. Worthy of all wo
can all do ana more than we know
how to do. dear heart! Freckles, are |
you listening to me? Ob, won't you
see it? Won't you believe it?"
“Oh, angel,” chartered the bewil-
dered Freckles, “are you truly mean-
ing it? Could it be?” i
“Of course it could.” flashed the an- |
gel, “because it just is!”
“But you can’t prove it” wailed
Freckles. “It ain't giving me a name
or me honor!"
“Freckles,” said the angel sternly,
“you are unreasonable!” Why, I did
prove every word | said! Everything
proves it! You look here! If you knew
for sure that 1 could give you your
name and your honor, and prove to you
that your mother did love you, why.
then would you just go to breathing
like perpetual motion and bang on for
dear life and get well?"
A great light leaped into Freckles
eyes,
“If | knew that, angel,” he said sol- |
emuly, “you couldn't be killing me it
you felled the biggest tree in the Lim- |
berlost smash on me!”
“Then you go right to work.” said |
the angel, “and before night I'll prove
one thing to you: I can show you eas-
fly enough how much your mother
loved you. That will be the first step,
and then the rest will all come.” i
Freckles caught her sleeve, l
“Me mother, angel! Me mother!” he !
marveled hoarsely. “Did you say you |
could be finding out today if me moth- |
er loved mer How? Oh, angel! All!
the rest don't matter, if only me moth- |
er didn't do it!"
“Then you rest easy,” said the angel, |
with large confidence. “Your mother
didn’t do it. Mothers of sons like you
don’t do such things as that. I'll go to |
work ht once and prove it to you. The
first thing to do is to go to that home
where you were and get the little
clothes you wore the night you were
left there. | kmow that they are re-
quired to save those things carefully.
We can find out almost all there is to
know about your mother from them.
Did you ever see them, Freckles?”
“Yis.” said Freckles.
The angel literally pounced on him.
“Freckles, were they white?” she
|
|
{
“Maybe they were once. They're all
yellow with laying, and brown with
blood stains now,” said Freckles, the
old note of bitterness creeping in. “You
can't be telling anything at all hy
them, angel.”
“Well, but 1 just can!" said the an-
gel positively,
“But how? Angel, tell me how!”
“Why, easily enough. 1 thought
you'd understand. People that can af-
ford anything at all, always get white
for little new bables—linen and lace.
and the very finest things to be had.
There's a young woman living near
us who cut up her wedding clothes to
have fine things for ber baby. Moth-
ers that love and want their babies
make fine seams, and tucks, and put
on lace and trimming by hand. They
sit and stitch, and stitch-little, even
stitches, every one just as careful.
Their eyes shine and their faces glow.
When they have to quit to do some-
thing else, they look sorry, and fold
up their work so particularly. There
isn’t much worth knowing about your
mother that those little clothes won't
tell.”
A new light dawned in Freckles’
eyes.
“Oh, angel! Will you go now? Wil
you be hurrying?’ he cried. :
“Right away,” said the angel. “1
won't stop for a thing. and I'll hurry
with all my might.”
She smoothed bis pillow, straight
ened the cover. gave him one steady
look in the eyes. and went quietly
from the room.
Outside the door, McLean and the
surgeon anxiously awaited her. Me-
Lean caught ber shoulders.
“Angel, what have you done?" he
demanded desperstely.
The ange! smiled defiance.
“What bave | done?’ she repeated.
“I've tried to save Freckles.”
McLean
“What will your father say?” he
eried.
“It strikes me,” said the angel,
“that what Freckles said would be to
the point.”
“Freckles!” burst out McLean.
“What could he say?’
“He seemed to be able to say several
things,” said the angel sweetly. “|
fancy the one that concerns you most
at present was, that if my father
would offer me to him he would not
have me.” A
“And no one knows why better than
1 do,” thundered McLean. “Every day
be must astonish me with some new
fineness.”
He gripped the surgeon until he al-
most lifted him from the floor.
“Save him!” he commanded. “Save
him!” he implored. “He is too fine to
be sacrificed.”
“His salvation lies here” said the
surgeon, stroking the angel's sunshiny
hair, “and | can read in the face of
her that she knows how she is going to
work it out. She will save him!
The angel sped iaughingly down the
ball, and into the street, just as she
was,
“I have come,” she sald to the matron
of the home, “to ask if you will allow
me to examine, or, better still, to take
with me, the little clothes thst a hoy
you called Freckles, discharged last
fall, wore the night you took him in.”
The woman eyed ber In greater
astonishment than the case called for.
“Well, I'd be glad to let you see
haven't them.
made some mistake. | was theroughly
convinced. and so was the superinten
dent. We let his people take those
things away yesterday. Who are vou.
nd what do you want with them?"
The ange! jooked at the matron
dazed and speechless.
———
| them," she said. “but the fact is we |
I do hope we haven't |
“There couldn't bave been a mis- |
take,” she continued, seeing the girt's
distress. “Freckles was here when 1
took charge, ten years ago. These
people had it all proved piain as day
that he belon%ed to them. They had
him traced to where he ran away down
in Illinois last fall, and there they
completely lost track of him. I'm
sorry you seem so terribly disappointed.
but it was all right. The man was his
uncle, and as like the boy as he could
possibly be. He was almost killed to
go back without him. If you know
where Freckles is, they'd give big
money to find out.”
“Who are they?” stammered the an-
gel. “Where are they going back to?”
“They are Irish folks. Miss,” said
the matron.
cago and over the country for the last
three months, hunting him everywhere,
They have given up and are starting
home today. They" —
“Did they leave an address? Where
could | find them?" burst in the angel.
“They left a card. and 1 notice th>
morning paper has the man’s picture
“They have been in Chi.
and is full of them. They've adver- |
tised a great deal in the city papers.
It's a wonder you haven't seen some-
thing.”
“Trains don't run right.
get Chicago papers,” snapped the an-
We never |
gel. “Please give me that card quick- |
Iy.
simply have to catch them!"
The matron came back with a card
“Their addresses are on there,” she
said. “Both here in Chicago and at
They may get away from me. ||
their home. They made them full and !
plain, and 1 was to cable at once if 1 |
got the least clew of him at any time
If they've left the city, you can stop
them in New York. You're sure to
catch them before they sail—if yon
hurry.”
The matron caught up a paper and
thrust it into the angel's hand as she
rushed for the street.
(Continued next week.1
—*“So there's another rupture of
Mount Vociféerous,” said Mrs. Partington,
as she put on her “The paper
tells us about the burning lather running
down the mountain, but it don’t tell how
it got afire.”
Medical.
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