The Bird Woman bent forward.  Together they studied that imprint of the Angel’s foot.  At last their eyes met, the Bird Woman’s filled with astonishment, and McLean’s humid with pity.  Neither said a word, but they knew.  McLean entered the swale and hunted up the bark.  He replaced it, and the Bird Woman carefully stepped over.  As they reached the bushes at the entrance, the voice of the Angel stopped them, for it was commanding and filled with much impatience.

“Freckles James Ross McLean!” she was saying.  “You fill me with dark-blue despair!  You’re singing as if your voice were glass and might break at any minute.  Why don’t you sing as you did a week ago?  Answer me that, please.”

Freckles smiled confusedly at the Angel, who sat on one of his fancy seats, playing his accompaniment on her banjo.

“You are a fraud,” she said.  “Here you went last week and led me to think that there was the making of a great singer in you, and now you are singing—­do you know how badly you are singing?”

“Yis,” said Freckles meekly.  “I’m thinking I’m too happy to be singing well today.  The music don’t come right only when I’m lonesome and sad.  The world’s for being all sunshine at prisint, for among you and Mr. McLean and the Bird Woman I’m after being that happy that I can’t keep me thoughts on me notes.  It’s more than sorry I am to be disappointing you.  Play it over, and I’ll be beginning again, and this time I’ll hold hard.”

“Well,” said the Angel disgustedly, “it seems to me that if I had all the things to be proud of that you have, I’d lift up my head and sing!”

“And what is it I’ve to be proud of, ma’am?” politely inquired Freckles.

“Why, a whole worldful of things,” cried the Angel explosively.  “For one thing, you can be good and proud over the way you’ve kept the timber thieves out of this lease, and the trust your father has in you.  You can be proud that you’ve never even once disappointed him or failed in what he believed you could do.  You can be proud over the way everyone speaks of you with trust and honor, and about how brave of heart and strong of body you are I heard a big man say a few days ago that the Limberlost was full of disagreeable things—­positive dangers, unhealthful as it could be, and that since the memory of the first settlers it has been a rendezvous for runaways, thieves, and murderers.  This swamp is named for a man that was lost here and wandered around ’til he starved.  That man I was talking with said he wouldn’t take your job for a thousand dollars a month—­in fact, he said he wouldn’t have it for any money, and you’ve never missed a day or lost a tree.  Proud!  Why, I should think you would just parade around about proper over that!