Indiana -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction; People with disabilities -- Fiction; Swamps -- Fiction
The Angel separated from a group of laughing, sweet-faced girls and came
hurrying to him. She was in snowy white--a quaint little frock, with
a marvel of soft lace around her throat and wrists. Through the sheer
sleeves of it her beautiful, rounded arms showed distinctly, and it was
cut just to the base of her perfect neck. On her head was a pure white
creation of fancy braid, with folds on folds of tulle, soft and silken
as cobwebs, lining the brim; while a mass of white roses clustered
against the gold of her hair, crept around the crown, and fell in a riot
to her shoulders at the back. There were gleams of gold with settings
of blue on her fingers, and altogether she was the daintiest, sweetest
sight he ever had seen. Freckles, standing on the curb, forgot himself
in his cotton shirt, corduroys, and his belt to which his wire-cutter
and pliers were hanging, and gazed as a man gazes when first he sees
the woman he adores with all her charms enhanced by appropriate and
beautiful clothing.
“Oh Freckles,” she cried as she came to him. “I was wondering about you
the other day. Do you know I never saw you in town before. You watch
that old line so closely! Why did you come? Is there any trouble? Are
you just starting to the Limberlost?”
“I came to bring your hat,” said Freckles. “You forgot it in the rush
the other day. I have left it with your father, and a message trying
to ixpriss the gratitude of me for how you and the Bird Woman were for
helping me out.”
The Angel nodded gravely, then Freckles saw that he had done the proper
thing in going to her father. His heart bounded until it jarred his
body, for she was saying that she scarcely could wait for the time to
come for the next picture of the Little Chicken series. “I want to hear
the remainder of that song, and I hadn't even begun seeing your room
yet,” she complained. “As for singing, if you can sing like that every
day, I never can get enough of it. I wonder if I couldn't bring my banjo
and some of the songs I like best. I'll play and you sing, and we'll put
the birds out of commission.”
Freckles stood on the curb with drooped eyes, for he felt that if
he lifted them the tumult of tender adoration in them would show and
frighten her.
“I was afraid your ixperience the other day would scare you so that
you'd never be coming again,” he found himself saying.
The Angel laughed gaily.
“Did I seem scared?” she questioned.
“No,” said Freckles, “you did not.”
“Oh, I just enjoyed that,” she cried. “Those hateful, stealing old
things! I had a big notion to pink one of them, but I thought maybe
someway it would be best for you that I shouldn't. They needed it. That
didn't scare me; and as for the Bird Woman, she's accustomed to finding
snakes, tramps, cross dogs, sheep, cattle, and goodness knows what! You
can't frighten her when she's after a picture. Did they come back?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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