been I suppose I would have picked it up from
the other children; but I'd the best voice of any of them in the Home
or at school. I could knock them all out singing. I was always leader in
the Home, and once one of the superintendents gave me carfare and let
me go into the city and sing in a boys' choir. The master said I'd the
swatest voice of them all until it got rough like, and then he made me
quit for awhile, but he said it would be coming back by now, and I'm
railly thinking it is, sir, for I've tried on the line a bit of late and
it seems to go smooth again and lots stronger. That and me chickens have
been all the company I've been having, and it will be all I'll want if I
can have some books and learn the real names of things, where they come
from, and why they do such interesting things. It's been fretting me
more than I knew to be shut up here among all these wonders and not
knowing a thing. I wanted to ask you what some books would cost me, and
if you'd be having the goodness to get me the right ones. I think I have
enough money."

Freckles offered his account-book and the Boss studied it gravely.

"You needn't touch your account, Freckles," he said. "Ten dollars from
this month's pay will provide you everything you need to start on. I
will write a friend in Grand Rapids today to select you the very best
and send them at once."

Freckles' eyes were shining.

"Never owned a book in me life!" he said. "Even me schoolbooks were
never mine. Lord! How I used to wish I could have just one of them for
me very own! Won't it be fun to see me sawbird and me little yellow
fellow looking at me from the pages of a book, and their real names and
all about them printed alongside? How long will it be taking, sir?"

"Ten days should do it nicely," said McLean. Then, seeing Freckles'
lengthening face, he added: "I'll have Duncan bring you a ten-bushel
store-box the next time he goes to town. He can haul it to the west
entrance and set it up wherever you want it. You can put in your spare
time filling it with the specimens you find until the books come,
and then you can study out what you have. I suspect you could collect
specimens that I could send to naturalists in the city and sell for you;
things like that winged creature, this morning. I don't know much in
that line, but it must have been a moth, and it might have been rare.
I've seen them by the thousand in museums, and in all nature I don't
remember rarer coloring