Freckles broke into an unrestrained laugh, for the bird-lover was keen about his courting, while evidently his mate was diffident.  When he approached too boisterously, she relieved him of a goodly tuft of feathers and sent him backward in a series of squirmy little jumps that gave the boy an idea of what had happened up-sky to send the falling feather across his pathway.

“Score one for the lady!  I’ll be umpiring this,” volunteered Freckles.

With a ravishing swagger, half-lifted wings, and deep, guttural hissing, the lover approached again.  He suddenly lifted his body, but she coolly rocked forward on the limb, glided gracefully beneath him, and slowly sailed into the Limberlost.  He recovered himself and gazed after her in astonishment.

Freckles hurried down the trail, shaking with laughter.  When he neared the path to the clearing and saw the Boss sitting motionless on the mare that was the pride of his heart, the boy broke into a run.

“Oh, Mr. McLean!” he cried.  “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting very long!  And the sun is getting hot!  I have been so slow this morning!  I could have gone faster, only there were that many things to keep me, and I didn’t know you would be here.  I’ll hurry after this.  I’ve never had to be giving excuses before.  The line wasn’t down, and there wasn’t a sign of trouble; it was other things that were making me late.”

McLean, smiling on the boy, immediately noticed the difference in him.  This flushed, panting, talkative lad was not the same creature who had sought him in despair and bitterness.  He watched in wonder as Freckles mopped the perspiration from his forehead and began to laugh.  Then, forgetting all his customary reserve with the Boss, the pent-up boyishness in the lad broke forth.  With an eloquence of which he never dreamed he told his story.  He talked with such enthusiasm that McLean never took his eyes from his face or shifted in the saddle until he described the strange bird-lover, and then the Boss suddenly bent over the pommel and laughed with the boy.

Freckles decorated his story with keen appreciation and rare touches of Irish wit and drollery that made it most interesting as well as very funny.  It was a first attempt at descriptive narration.  With an inborn gift for striking the vital point, a naturalist’s dawning enthusiasm for the wonders of the Limberlost, and the welling joy of his newly found happiness, he made McLean see the struggles of the moth and its freshly painted wings, the dainty, brilliant bird-mates of different colors, the feather sliding through the clear air, the palpitant throat and batting eyes of the frog; while his version of the big bird’s courtship won for the Boss the best laugh he had enjoyed for years.