Wherein Freckles Proves His Mettle and Finds Friends
Next morning found Freckles in clean, whole clothing, fed, and rested.
Then McLean outfitted him and gave him careful instruction in the use of
his weapon. The Boss showed him around the timber-line, and engaged him
a place to board with the family of his head teamster, Duncan, whom he
had brought from Scotland with him, and who lived in a small clearing
he was working out between the swamp and the corduroy. When the gang was
started for the south camp, Freckles was left to guard a fortune in the
Limberlost. That he was under guard himself those first weeks he never
knew.
Each hour was torture to the boy. The restricted life of a great
city orphanage was the other extreme of the world compared with the
Limberlost. He was afraid for his life every minute. The heat was
intense. The heavy wading-boots rubbed his feet until they bled. He was
sore and stiff from his long tramp and outdoor exposure. The seven
miles of trail was agony at every step. He practiced at night, under the
direction of Duncan, until he grew sure in the use of his revolver. He
cut a stout hickory cudgel, with a knot on the end as big as his fist;
this never left his hand. What he thought in those first days he himself
could not recall clearly afterward.
His heart stood still every time he saw the beautiful marsh-grass begin
a sinuous waving AGAINST the play of the wind, as McLean had told him it
would. He bolted half a mile with the first boom of the bittern, and his
hat lifted with every yelp of the sheitpoke. Once he saw a lean, shadowy
form following him, and fired his revolver. Then he was frightened worse
than ever for fear it might have been Duncan's collie.
The first afternoon that he found his wires down, and he was compelled
to plunge knee deep into the black swamp-muck to restring them, he
became so ill from fear and nervousness that he scarcely could control
his shaking hand to do the work. With every step, he felt that he would
miss secure footing and be swallowed in that clinging sea of blackness.
In dumb agony he plunged forward, clinging to the posts and trees until
he had finished restringing and testing the wire. He had consumed
much time. Night closed in. The Limberlost stirred gently, then shook
herself, growled, and awoke around him.
There seemed to be a great owl hooting from every hollow tree, and
a little one screeching from every knothole. The bellowing of big
bullfrogs was not sufficiently deafening to shut out the wailing of
whip-poor-wills that seemed to come from every bush. Nighthawks swept
past him with their shivering cry, and bats struck his face. A prowling
wildcat missed its catch and screamed with rage. A straying fox bayed
incessantly for its mate.
The hair on the back of Freckles' neck arose as bristles, and his knees
wavered beneath him. He could not see whether the dreaded snakes were on
the trail, or, in the pandemonium, hear the rattle for which McLean had
cautioned him to listen. He stood motionless in an agony of fear. His
breath whistled between his teeth. The perspiration ran down his face
and body in little streams.
Something big, black, and heavy came crashing through the swamp close
to him, and with a yell of utter panic Freckles ran--how far he did not
know; but at last he gained control over himself and retraced his steps.
His jaws set stiffly and the sweat dried on his body. When he reached
the place from which he had started to run, he turned and with measured
steps made his way down the line. After a time he realized that he was
only walking, so he faced that sea of horrors again. When he came toward
the corduroy, the cudgel fell to test the wire at each step.
Sounds that curdled his blood seemed to encompass him, and shapes of
terror to draw closer and closer. Fear had so gained the mastery that he
did not dare look behind him; and just when he felt that he would fall
dead before he ever reached the clearing, came Duncan's rolling call:
“Freckles! Freckles!” A shuddering sob burst in the boy's dry throat;
but he only told Duncan that finding the wire down had caused the delay.
The next morning he started on time. Day after day, with his heart
pounding, he ducked, dodged, ran when he could, and fought when he was
brought to bay. If he ever had an idea of giving up, no one knew it; for
he clung to his job without the shadow of wavering. All these things, in
so far as he guessed them, Duncan, who had been set to watch the first
weeks of Freckles' work, carried to the Boss at the south camp; but
the innermost, exquisite torture of the thing the big Scotchman never
guessed, and McLean, with his finer perceptions, came only a little
closer.
After a few weeks, when Freckles learned that he was still living, that
he had a home, and the very first money he ever had possessed was safe
in his pockets, he began to grow proud. He yet side-stepped, dodged, and
hurried to avoid being late again, but he was gradually developing the
fearlessness that men ever acquire of dangers to which they are hourly
accustomed.
His heart seemed to be leaping when his first rattler disputed the trail
with him, but he mustered courage to attack it with his club. After its
head had been crushed, he mastered an Irishman's inborn repugnance for
snakes sufficiently to cut off its rattles to show Duncan. With this
victory, his greatest fear of them was gone.
Then he began to realize that with the abundance of food in the swamp,
flesh-hunters would not come on the trail and attack him, and he had his
revolver for defence if they did. He soon learned to laugh at the big,
floppy birds that made horrible noises. One day, watching behind a tree,
he saw a crane solemnly performing a few measures of a belated nuptial
song-and-dance with his mate. Realizing that it was intended in
tenderness, no matter how it appeared, the lonely, starved heart of the
boy sympathized with them.
Before the first month passed, he was fairly easy about his job; by the
next he rather liked it. Nature can be trusted to work her own miracle
in the heart of any man whose daily task keeps him alone among her
sights, sounds, and silences.
When day after day the only thing that relieved his utter loneliness was
the companionship of the birds and beasts of the swamp, it was the
most natural thing in the world that Freckles should turn to them for
friendship. He began by instinctively protecting the weak and helpless.
He was astonished at the quickness with which they became accustomed to
him and the disregard they showed for his movements, when they learned
that he was not a hunter, while the club he carried was used more
frequently for their benefit than his own. He scarcely could believe
what he saw.
From the effort to protect the birds and animals, it was only a short
step to the possessive feeling, and with that sprang the impulse to
caress and provide. Through fall, when brooding was finished and the
upland birds sought the swamp in swarms to feast on its seeds and
berries, Freckles was content with watching them and speculating about
them. Outside of half a dozen of the very commonest they were strangers
to him. The likeness of their actions to humanity was an hourly
surprise.
When black frost began stripping the Limberlost, cutting the ferns,
shearing the vines from the trees, mowing the succulent green things
of the swale, and setting the leaves swirling down, he watched the
departing troops of his friends with dismay. He began to realize that he
would be left alone. He made especial efforts toward friendliness with
the hope that he could induce some of them to stay. It was then that he
conceived the idea of carrying food to the birds; for he saw that they
were leaving for lack of it; but he could not stop them. Day after day,
flocks gathered and departed: by the time the first snow whitened
his trail around the Limberlost, there were left only the little
black-and-white juncos, the sapsuckers, yellow-hammers, a few patriarchs
among the flaming cardinals, the blue jays, the crows, and the quail.
Then Freckles began his wizard work. He cleared a space of swale, and
twice a day he spread a birds' banquet. By the middle of December the
strong winds of winter had beaten most of the seed from the grass and
bushes. The snow fell, covering the swamp, and food was very scarce and
difficult to find. The birds scarcely waited until Freckles' back was
turned to attack his provisions. In a few weeks they flew toward the
clearing to meet him. During the bitter weather of January they came
halfway to the cabin every morning, and fluttered around him as
doves all the way to the feeding-ground. Before February they were so
accustomed to him, and so hunger-driven, that they would perch on
his head and shoulders, and the saucy jays would try to pry into his
pockets.
Then Freckles added to wheat and crumbs, every scrap of refuse food he
could find at the cabin. He carried to his pets the parings of apples,
turnips, potatoes, stray cabbage-leaves, and carrots, and tied to the
bushes meat-bones having scraps of fat and gristle. One morning, coming
to his feeding-ground unusually early, he found a gorgeous cardinal
and a rabbit side by side sociably nibbling a cabbage-leaf, and that
instantly gave to him the idea of cracking nuts, from the store he had
gathered for Duncan's children, for the squirrels, in the effort to add
them to his family. Soon he had them coming--red, gray, and black; then
he became filled with a vast impatience that he did not know their names
or habits.
So the winter passed. Every week McLean rode to the Limberlost; never on
the same day or at the same hour. Always he found Freckles at his work,
faithful and brave, no matter how severe the weather.
The boy's earnings constituted his first money; and when the Boss
explained to him that he could leave them safe at a bank and carry away
a scrap of paper that represented the amount, he went straight on every
payday and made his deposit, keeping out barely what was necessary for
his board and clothing. What he wanted to do with his money he did not
know, but it gave to him a sense of freedom and power to feel that it
was there--it was his and he could have it when he chose. In imitation
of McLean, he bought a small pocket account-book, in which he carefully
set down every dollar he earned and every penny he spent. As his
expenses were small and the Boss paid him generously, it was astonishing
how his little hoard grew.
That winter held the first hours of real happiness in Freckles' 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' 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' 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!”