The Greatest Children's Books - Gene Stratton-Porter Edition. Stratton-Porter Gene

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СКАЧАТЬ all the space possible. Every rod he traveled he used the caution that sprang from knowledge of danger and the direction from which it probably would come. Several times he thought of sending for McLean, but for his life he could not make up his mind to do it with nothing more tangible than one footprint to justify him.

      He waited until he was sure Duncan would be at home, if he were coming for the night, before he went to supper. The first thing he saw as he crossed the swale was the big bays in the yard.

      There had been no one passing that day, and Duncan readily agreed to watch until Freckles rode to town. He told Duncan of the footprint, and urged him to guard closely. Duncan said he might rest easy, and filling his pipe and taking a good revolver, the big man went to the Limberlost.

      Freckles made himself clean and neat, and raced to town, but it was night and the stars were shining before he reached the home of the Bird Woman. From afar he could see that the house was ablaze with lights. The lawn and veranda were strung with fancy lanterns and alive with people. He thought his errand important, so to turn back never occurred to Freckles. This was all the time or opportunity he would have. He must see the Bird Woman, and see her at once. He leaned his wheel inside the fence and walked up the broad front entrance. As he neared the steps, he saw that the place was swarming with young people, and the Angel, with an excuse to a group that surrounded her, came hurrying to him.

      “Oh Freckles!” she cried delightedly. “So you could come? We were so afraid you could not! I'm as glad as I can be!”

      “I don't understand,” said Freckles. “Were you expecting me?”

      “Why of course!” exclaimed the Angel. “Haven't you come to my party? Didn't you get my invitation? I sent you one.”

      “By mail?” asked Freckles.

      “Yes,” said the Angel. “I had to help with the preparations, and I couldn't find time to drive out; but I wrote you a letter, and told you that the Bird Woman was giving a party for me, and we wanted you to come, surely. I told them at the office to put it with Mr. Duncan's mail.”

      “Then that's likely where it is at present,” said Freckles. “Duncan comes to town only once a week, and at times not that. He's home tonight for the first in a week. He's watching an hour for me until I come to the Bird Woman with a bit of work I thought she'd be caring to hear about bad. Is she where I can see her?”

      The Angel's face clouded.

      “What a disappointment!” she cried. “I did so want all my friends to know you. Can't you stay anyway?”

      Freckles glanced from his wading-boots to the patent leathers of some of the Angel's friends, and smiled whimsically, but there was no danger of his ever misjudging her again.

      “You know I cannot, Angel,” he said.

      “I am afraid I do,” she said ruefully. “It's too bad! But there is a thing I want for you more than to come to my party, and that is to hang on and win with your work. I think of you every day, and I just pray that those thieves are not getting ahead of you. Oh, Freckles, do watch closely!”

      She was so lovely a picture as she stood before him, ardent in his cause, that Freckles could not take his eyes from her to notice what her friends were thinking. If she did not mind, why should he? Anyway, if they really were the Angel's friends, probably they were better accustomed to her ways than he.

      Her face and bared neck and arms were like the wild rose bloom. Her soft frock of white tulle lifted and stirred around her with the gentle evening air. The beautiful golden hair, that crept around her temples and ears as if it loved to cling there, was caught back and bound with broad blue satin ribbon. There was a sash of blue at her waist, and knots of it catching up her draperies.

      “Must I go after the Bird Woman?” she pleaded.

      “Indade, you must,” answered Freckles firmly.

      The Angel went away, but returned to say that the Bird Woman was telling a story to those inside and she could not come for a short time.

      “You won't come in?” she pleaded.

      “I must not,” said Freckles. “I am not dressed to be among your friends, and I might be forgetting meself and stay too long.”

      “Then,” said the Angel, “we mustn't go through the house, because it would disturb the story; but I want you to come the outside way to the conservatory and have some of my birthday lunch and some cake to take to Mrs. Duncan and the babies. Won't that be fun?”

      Freckles thought that it would be more than fun, and followed delightedly.

      The Angel gave him a big glass, brimming with some icy, sparkling liquid that struck his palate as it never had been touched before, because a combination of frosty fruit juices had not been a frequent beverage with him. The night was warm, and the Angel most beautiful and kind. A triple delirium of spirit, mind, and body seized upon him and developed a boldness all unnatural. He slightly parted the heavy curtains that separated the conservatory from the company and looked between. He almost stopped breathing. He had read of things like that, but he never had seen them.

      The open space seemed to stretch through half a dozen rooms, all ablaze with lights, perfumed with flowers, and filled with elegantly dressed people. There were glimpses of polished floors, sparkling glass, and fine furnishings. From somewhere, the voice of his beloved Bird Woman arose and fell.

      The Angel crowded beside him and was watching also.

      “Doesn't it look pretty?” she whispered.

      “Do you suppose Heaven is any finer than that?” asked Freckles.

      The Angel began to laugh.

      “Do you want to be laughing harder than that?” queried Freckles.

      “A laugh is always good,” said the Angel. “A little more avoirdupois won't hurt me. Go ahead.”

      “Well then,” said Freckles, “it's only that I feel all over as if I belonged there. I could wear fine clothes, and move over those floors, and hold me own against the best of them.”

      “But where does my laugh come in?” demanded the Angel, as if she had been defrauded.

      “And you ask me where the laugh comes in, looking me in the face after that,” marveled Freckles.

      “I wouldn't be so foolish as to laugh at such a manifest truth as that,” said the Angel. “Anyone who knows you even half as well as I do, knows that you are never guilty of a discourtesy, and you move with twice the grace of any man here. Why shouldn't you feel as if you belonged where people are graceful and courteous?”

      “On me soul!” said Freckles, “you are kind to be thinking it. You are doubly kind to be saying it.”

      The curtains parted and a woman came toward them. Her silks and laces trailed across the polished floors. The lights gleamed on her neck and arms, and flashed from rare jewels. She was smiling brightly; and until she spoke, Freckles had not realized fully that it was his loved Bird Woman.

      Noticing his bewilderment, she cried: “Why, Freckles! Don't you know me in my war clothes?”

      “I do in the uniform in which you fight the Limberlost,” said Freckles.

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