Freckles offered his account-book and the Boss studied it gravely.

“You needn’t touch your account, Freckles,” he said.  “Ten dollars from this month’s pay will provide you everything you need to start on.  I will write a friend in Grand Rapids today to select you the very best and send them at once.”

Freckles’ eyes were shining.

“Never owned a book in me life!” he said.  “Even me schoolbooks were never mine.  Lord!  How I used to wish I could have just one of them for me very own!  Won’t it be fun to see me sawbird and me little yellow fellow looking at me from the pages of a book, and their real names and all about them printed alongside?  How long will it be taking, sir?”

“Ten days should do it nicely,” said McLean.  Then, seeing Freckles’ lengthening face, he added:  “I’ll have Duncan bring you a ten-bushel store-box the next time he goes to town.  He can haul it to the west entrance and set it up wherever you want it.  You can put in your spare time filling it with the specimens you find until the books come, and then you can study out what you have.  I suspect you could collect specimens that I could send to naturalists in the city and sell for you; things like that winged creature, this morning.  I don’t know much in that line, but it must have been a moth, and it might have been rare.  I’ve seen them by the thousand in museums, and in all nature I don’t remember rarer coloring than their wings.  I’ll order you a butterfly-net and box and show you how scientists pin specimens.  Possibly you can make a fine collection of these swamp beauties.  It will be all right for you to take a pair of different moths and butterflies, but I don’t want to hear of your killing any birds.  They are protected by heavy fines.”

McLean rode away leaving Freckles staring aghast.  Then he saw the point and smiled.  Standing on the trail, he twirled the feather and thought over the morning.

“Well, if life ain’t getting to be worth living!” he said wonderingly.  “Biggest streak of luck I ever had!  ’Bout time something was coming my way, but I wouldn’t ever thought anybody could strike such magnificent prospects through only a falling feather.”

CHAPTER IV

Wherein Freckles Faces Trouble Bravely and Opens the Way for New Experiences

On Duncan’s return from his next trip to town there was a big store-box loaded on the back of his wagon.  He drove to the west entrance of the swamp, set the box on a stump that Freckles had selected in a beautiful, sheltered place, and made it secure on its foundations with a tree at its back.

“It seems most a pity to nail into that tree,” said Duncan.  “I haena the time to examine into the grain of it, but it looks as if it might be a rare ane.  Anyhow, the nailin’ winna hurt it deep, and havin’ the case by it will make it safer if it is a guid ane.”

“Isn’t it an oak?” asked Freckles.