serted.

He chafed at the birds' ingratitude, but he found speedy consolation in
watching and befriending the newcomers. He surely would have been proud
and highly pleased if he had known that many of the former inhabitants
of the interior swamp now grouped their nests beside the timber-line
solely for the sake of his protection and company.

The yearly resurrection of the Limberlost is a mighty revival. Freckles
stood back and watched with awe and envy the gradual reclothing and
repopulation of the swamp. Keen-eyed and alert through danger and
loneliness, he noted every stage of development, from the first piping
frog and unsheathing bud, to full leafage and the return of the last
migrant.

The knowledge of his complete loneliness and utter insignificance was
hourly thrust upon him. He brooded and fretted until he was in a fever;
yet he never guessed the cause. He was filled with a vast impatience, a
longing that he scarcely could endure.

It was June by the zodiac, June by the Limberlost, and by every delight
of a newly resurrected season it should have been June in the hearts of
all men. Yet Freckles scowled darkly as he came down the trail, and the
running TAP, TAP that tested the sagging wire and telegraphed word
of his coming to his furred and feathered friends of the swamp, this
morning carried the story of his discontent a mile ahead of him.

Freckles' special pet, a dainty, yellow-coated, black-sleeved, cock
goldfinch, had remained on the wire for several days past the bravest
of all; and Freckles, absorbed with the cunning and beauty of the tiny
fellow, never guessed that he was being duped. For the goldfinch was
skipping, flirting, and swinging for the express purpose of so holding
his attention that he would not look up and see a small cradle of
thistledown and wool perilously near his head. In the beginning of
brooding, the spunky little homesteader had clung heroically to the wire
when he was almost paralyzed with fright. When day after day passed
and brought only softly whistled repetitions of his call, a handful of
crumbs on the top of a locust line-post, and gently worded coaxings, he
grew in confidence. Of late he had sung and swung during the passing of
Freckles, who, not dreaming of the nest and the solemn-eyed little hen
so close above, thought himself unusually gifted in his power to attract
the birds. This morning the goldfinch scarcely could believe his ears,
and clung to the wire until an u