have.

"Bless his fool little hot heart!" said Duncan. "And him so sore it is
tearing him to move for anything. Nae wonder he has us all loving him!"

Freckles was moving briskly, and his heart was so happy that he forgot
all about the bruises. He hurried around the trail, and on his way down
the east side he went to see the chickens. The mother bird was on the
nest. He was afraid the other egg might be hatching, so he did not
venture to disturb her. He made the round and reached his study early.
He ate his lunch, but did not need to start on the second trip until the
middle of the afternoon. He would have long hours to work on his flower
bed, improve his study, and learn about his chickens. Lovingly he set
his room in order and watered the flowers and carpet. He had chosen for
his resting-place the coolest spot on the west side, where there was
almost always a breeze; but today the heat was so intense that it
penetrated even there.

"I'm mighty glad there's nothing calling me inside!" he said. "There's
no bit of air stirring, and it will just be steaming. Oh, but it's
luck Duncan found the nest before it got so unbearing hot! I might have
missed it altogether. Wouldn't it have been a shame to lose that sight?
The cunning little divil! When he gets to toddling down that log to meet
me, won't he be a circus? Wonder if he'll be as graceful a performer
afoot as his father and mother?"

The heat became more insistent. Noon came; Freckles ate his dinner and
settled for an hour or two on a bench with a book.

CHAPTER V

Wherein an Angel Materializes and a Man Worships

Perhaps there was a breath of sound--Freckles never afterward could
remember--but for some reason he lifted his head as the bushes parted
and the face of an angel looked between. Saints, nymphs, and fairies
had floated down his cathedral aisle for him many times, with forms and
voices of exquisite beauty.

Parting the wild roses at the entrance was beauty of which Freckles
never had dreamed. Was it real or would it vanish as the other dreams?
He dropped his book, and rising to his feet, went a step closer, gazing
intently. This was real flesh and blood. It was in every way kin to the
Limberlost, for no bird of its branches swung with easier grace than
this dainty young thing rocked on the bit of morass on which she stood.
A sapling beside her was not straighter or rounder than her slender
form. Her soft, waving hair clung around her face from the h