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!”

CHAPTER III

Wherein a Feather Falls and a Soul Is Born

So Freckles fared through the bitter winter.  He was very happy.  He had hungered for freedom, love, and appreciation so long!  He had been unspeakably lonely at the Home; and the utter loneliness of a great desert or forest is not so difficult to endure as the loneliness of being constantly surrounded by crowds of people who do not care in the least whether one is living or dead.

All through the winter Freckles’ entire energy was given to keeping up his lines and his “chickens” from freezing or starving.  When the first breath of spring touched the Limberlost, and the snow receded before it; when the catkins began to bloom; when there came a hint of green to the trees, bushes, and swale; when the rushes lifted their heads, and the pulse of the newly resurrected season beat strongly in the heart of nature, something new stirred in the breast of the boy.