focus, whatever that is. Jim says there ain't a bird on his place

that don't actually seem to like having her around after she has
wheedled them a few days, and the pictures she takes nobody would

ever believe who didn't stand by and see."
"Will you he sure to tell her to come?" asked Freckles.

Duncan slept at home that night. He heard Freckles slipping out
early the next morning, but he was too sleepy to wonder why, until

he came to do his morning chores. When he found that none of his
stock was at all thirsty, and saw the water-trough brimming, he

knew that the boy was trying to make up to him for the loss of the
big trough that he had been so anxious to have.

"Bless his fool little hot heart!" said Duncan. "And him so sore it
is tearing him to move for anything. Nae wonder he has us all

loving him!"
Freckles was moving briskly, and his heart was so happy that he

forgot all about the bruises. He hurried around the trail, and on
his way down the east side he went to see the chickens. The mother

bird was on the nest. He was afraid the other egg might be
hatching, so he did not venture to disturb her. He made the round

and reached his study early. He ate his lunch, but did not need
to start on the second trip until the middle of the afternoon.

He would have long hours to work on his flower bed, improve his study,
and learn about his chickens. Lovingly he set his room in order and

watered the flowers and carpet. He had chosen for his resting-place
the coolest spot on the west side, where there was almost always a

breeze; but today the heat was so intense that it penetrated even there.
"I'm mighty glad there's nothing calling me inside!" he said.

"There's no bit of air stirring, and it will just be steaming.
Oh, but it's luck Duncan found the nest before it got so unbearing hot!

I might have missed it altogether. Wouldn't it have been a shame to
lose that sight? The cunning little divil! When he gets to toddling

down that log to meet me, won't he be a circus? Wonder if he'll be
as graceful a performer afoot as his father and mother?"

The heat became more insistent. Noon came; Freckles ate his dinner
and settled for an hour or two on a bench with a book.

CHAPTER V
Wherein an Angel Materializes and a Man Worships

Perhaps there was a breath of sound--Freckles never afterward could
remember--but for some reason he lifted his head as the bushes

parted and the face of an angel looked between. Saints, nymphs, and
fairies had floated down his cathedral aisle for him many times,

with forms and voices of exquisite beauty.
Parting the wild roses at the entrance was beauty of which

Freckles never had dreamed. Was it real or would it vanish as the
other dreams? He dropped his book, and rising to his feet, went a step

closer, gazing intently. This was real flesh and blood. It was in
every way kin to the Limberlost, for no bird of its branches swung

with easier grace than this dainty young thing rocked on the bit of
morass on which she stood. A sapling beside her was not straighter

or rounder than her slender form. Her soft, waving hair clung
around her face from the heat, and curled over her shoulders.

It was all of one piece with the gold of the sun that filtered
between the branches. Her eyes were the deepest blue of the iris,

her lips the reddest red of the foxfire, while her cheeks were
exactly of the same satin as the wild rose petals caressing them.

She was smiling at Freckles in perfect confidence, and she cried:
"Oh, I'm so delighted that I've found you!"

The wildly leaping heart of Freckles burst from his body and fell
in the black swamp-muck at her feet with such a thud that he did

not understand how she could avoid hearing. He really felt that if
she looked down she would see.

Incredulous, he quavered: "An'--an' was you looking for me?"
"I hoped I might find you," said the Angel. "You see, I didn't do

as I was told, and I'm lost. The Bird Woman said I should wait in
the carriage until she came back. She's been gone hours. It's a

perfect Turkish bath in there, and I'm all lumpy with mosquito bites.
Just when I thought that I couldn't bear it another minute,

along came the biggest Papilio Ajax you ever saw. I knew how
pleased she'd be, so I ran after it. It flew so slow and so low

that I thought a dozen times I had it. Then all at once it went
from sight above the trees, and I couldn't find my way back to save me.

I think I've walked more than an hour. I have been mired to my knees.
A thorn raked my arm until it is bleeding, and I'm so tired and warm."

She parted the bushes farther. Freckles saw that her blue cotton
frock clung to her, limp with perspiration. It was torn across

the breast. One sleeve hung open from shoulder to elbow. A thorn
had torn her arm until it was covered with blood, and the gnats and

mosquitoes were clustering around it. Her feet were in lace hose
and low shoes. Freckles gasped. In the Limberlost in low shoes!

He caught an armful of moss from his carpet and buried it in the
ooze in front of her for a footing.

"Come out here so I can see where you are stepping. Quick, for the
life of you!" he ordered.

She smiled on him indulgently.
"Why?" she inquired.

"Did anybody let you come here and not be telling you of the
snakes?" urged Freckles.

"We met Mr. McLean on the corduroy, and he did say something about
snakes, I believe. The Bird Woman put on leather leggings, and a

nice, parboiled time she must be having! Worst dose I ever endured,
and I'd nothing to do but swelter."

"Will you be coming out of there?" groaned Freckles.
She laughed as if it were a fine joke.

"Maybe if I'd be telling you I killed a rattler curled upon that
same place you're standing, as long as me body and the thickness

of me arm, you'd be moving where I can see your footing,"
he urged insistently.

"What a perfectlydelightful little brogue you speak," she said.
"My father is Irish, and half should be enough to entitle me to

that much. `Maybe--if I'd--be telling you,'" she imitated, rounding
and accenting each word carefully.

Freckles was beginning to feel a wildness in his head. He had
derided Wessner at that same hour yesterday. Now his own eyes were

filling with tears.
"If you were understanding the danger!" he continued desperately.

"Oh, I don't think there is much!"
She tilted on the morass.

"If you killed one snake here, it's probably all there is near; and
anyway, the Bird Woman says a rattlesnake is a gentleman and always

gives warning before he strikes. I don't hear any rattling. Do you?"
"Would you be knowing it if you did?" asked Freckles, almost impatiently.

How the laugh of the young thing rippled!
"`Would I be knowing it?'" she mocked. "You should see the swamps

of Michigan where they dump rattlers from the marl-dredgers three
and four at a time!"

Freckles stood astounded. She did know. She was not in the
least afraid. She was depending on a rattlesnake to live up to

his share of the contract and rattle in time for her to move.
The one characteristic an Irishman admires in a woman, above all

others, is courage. Freckles worshiped anew. He changed his tactics.
"I'd be pleased to be receiving you at me front door," he said,

"but as you have arrived at the back, will you come in and be seated?"
He waved toward a bench. The Angel came instantly.

"Oh, how lovely and cool!" she cried.