For two weeks he had found them circling over the Limberlost regularly, but one morning the female was missing and only the big black chicken hung sentinel above the swamp.  His mate did not reappear in the following days, and Freckles grew very anxious.  He spoke of it to Mrs. Duncan, and she quieted his fears by raising a delightful hope in their stead.

“Why, Freckles, if it’s the hen-bird ye are missing, it’s ten to one she’s safe,” she said.  “She’s laid, and is setting, ye silly!  Watch him and mark whaur he lichts.  Then follow and find the nest.  Some Sabbath we’ll all gang see it.”

Accepting this theory, Freckles began searching for the nest.  Because these “chickens” were large, as the hawks, he looked among the treetops until he almost sprained the back of his neck.  He had half the crow and hawk nests in the swamp located.  He searched for this nest instead of collecting subjects for his case.  He found the pair the middle of one forenoon on the elm where he had watched their love-making.  The big black chicken was feeding his mate; so it was proved that they were a pair, they were both alive, and undoubtedly she was brooding.  After that Freckles’ nest-hunting continued with renewed zeal, but as he had no idea where to look and Duncan could offer no helpful suggestion, the nest was no nearer to being found.

Coming from a long day on the trail, Freckles saw Duncan’s children awaiting him much closer the swale than they usually ventured, and from their wild gestures he knew that something had happened.  He began to run, but the cry that reached him was:  “The books have come!”

How they hurried!  Freckles lifted the youngest to his shoulder, the second took his club and dinner pail, and when they reached Mrs. Duncan they found her at work on a big box.  She had loosened the lid, and then she laughingly sat on it.

“Ye canna have a peep in here until ye have washed and eaten supper,” she said.  “It’s all ready on the table.  Ance ye begin on this, ye’ll no be willin’ to tak’ your nose o’ it till bedtime, and I willna get my work done the nicht.  We’ve eaten long ago.”

It was difficult work, but Freckles smiled bravely.  He made himself neat, swallowed a few bites, then came so eagerly that Mrs. Duncan yielded, although she said she very well knew all the time that his supper would be spoiled.

Lifting the lid, they removed the packing and found in that box books on birds, trees, flowers, moths, and butterflies.  There was also one containing Freckles’ bullfrog, true to life.  Besides these were a butterfly-net, a naturalist’s tin specimen-box, a bottle of cyanide, a box of cotton, a paper of long, steel specimen-pins, and a letter telling what all these things were and how to use them.

At the discovery of each new treasure, Freckles shouted:  “Will you be looking at this, now?”

Mrs. Duncan cried:  “Weel, I be drawed on!”

The eldest boy turned a somersault for every extra, while the baby, trying to follow his example, bunched over in a sidewise sprawl and cut his foot on the axe with which his mother had prized up the box-lid.  That sobered them, they carried the books indoors.  Mrs. Duncan had a top shelf in her closet cleared for them, far above the reach of meddling little fingers.