ll. In the afternoon the author went to the river northeast of town
to secure mallow pictures for another chapter, and after working in
burning sun on the river bank until exhausted, she several times waded
the river to examine bushes on the opposite bank. On the way home she
had a severe chill, and for the following three weeks lay twisted in
the convulsions of congestion, insensible most of the time. Skilled
doctors and nurses did their best, which they admitted would have
availed nothing if the patient had not had a constitution without a
flaw upon which to work.

"This is the history," said Mrs. Porter, "of one little tail piece
among the pictures. There were about thirty others, none so strenuous,
but none easy, each having a living, fighting history for me. If I were
to give in detail the story of the two years' work required to secure
the set of bird studies illustrating 'The Cardinal,' it would make a
much larger book than the life of the bird."

"The Cardinal" was published in June of 1903. On the 20th of October,
1904, "Freckles" appeared. Mrs. Porter had been delving afield with all
her heart and strength for several years, and in the course of her work
had spent every other day for three months in the Limberlost swamp,
making a series of studies of the nest of a black vulture. Early in her
married life she had met a Scotch lumberman, who told her of the swamp
and of securing fine timber there for Canadian shipbuilders, and later
when she had moved to within less than a mile of its northern boundary,
she met a man who was buying curly maple, black walnut, golden oak,
wild cherry, and other wood extremely valuable for a big furniture
factory in Grand Rapids. There was one particular woman, of all those
the author worked among, who exercised herself most concerning her. She
never failed to come out if she saw her driving down the lane to the
woods, and caution her to be careful. If she felt that Mrs. Porter had
become interested and forgotten that it was long past meal time, she
would send out food and water or buttermilk to refresh her. She had her
family posted, and if any of them saw a bird with a straw or a hair in
its beak, they followed until they found its location. It was her
husband who drove the stake and ploughed around the killdeer nest in
the cornfield to save it for the author; and he did many other acts of
kindness without understanding exactly what he was doing or why.
"Merely that I wanted cer