Freckles tried to think connectedly, but there were too many places on the trail where the Angel’s footprints were vet visible.  She had stepped in one mucky spot and left a sharp impression.  The afternoon sun had baked it hard, and the horses’ hoofs had not obliterated any part of it, as they had in so many places.  Freckles stood fascinated, gazing at it.  He measured it lovingly with his eye.  He would not have ventured a caress on her hat any more than on her person, but this was different.  Surely a footprint on a trail might belong to anyone who found and wanted it.  He stooped under the wires and entered the swamp.  With a little searching, he found a big piece of thick bark loose on a log and carefully peeling it, carried it out and covered the print so that the first rain would not obliterate it.

When he reached his room, he tenderly laid the hat upon his bookshelf, and to wear off his awkwardness, mounted his wheel and went spinning on trail again.  It was like flying, for the path was worn smooth with his feet and baked hard with the sun almost all the way.  When he came to the bark, he veered far to one side and smiled at it in passing.  Suddenly he was off the wheel, kneeling beside it.  He removed his hat, carefully lifted the bark, and gazed lovingly at the imprint.

“I wonder what she was going to say of me voice,” he whispered.  “She never got it said, but from the face of her, I believe she was liking it fairly well.  Perhaps she was going to say that singing was the big thing I was to be doing.  That’s what they all thought at the Home.  Well, if it is, I’ll just shut me eyes, think of me little room, the face of her watching, and the heart of her beating, and I’ll raise them.  Damn them, if singing will do it, I’ll raise them from the benches!”

With this dire threat, Freckles knelt, as at a wayside spring, and deliberately laid his lips on the footprint.  Then he arose, appearing as if he had been drinking at the fountain of gladness.

CHAPTER VIII

Wherein Freckles Meets a Man of Affairs and Loses Nothing by the Encounter

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

Freckles stood before her, holding the Angel’s hat.

“I’ve been thinking this long time that ye or Duncan would see that sunbonnets werena braw enough for a woman of my standing, and ye’re a guid laddie to bring me this beautiful hat.”

She turned it around, examining the weave of the straw and the foliage trimmings, passing her rough fingers over the satin ties delightedly.  As she held it up, admiring it, Freckles’ astonished eyes saw a new side of Sarah Duncan.  She was jesting, but under the jest the fact loomed strong that, though poor, overworked, and with none but God-given refinement, there was something in her soul crying after that bit of feminine finery, and it made his heart ache for her.  He resolved that when he reached the city he would send her a hat, if it took fifty dollars to do it.