on of prying and pulling each
other to the surface. Our clothing was wringing wet, and the exposed
parts of our bodies lumpy with bites and stings. My husband found the
tree, cleared the opening to the great prostrate log, traversed its
unspeakable odours for nearly forty feet to its farthest recess, and
brought the baby and egg to the light in his leaf-lined hat.

"We could endure the location only by dipping napkins in deodorant and
binding them over our mouths and nostrils. Every third day for almost
three months we made this trip, until Little Chicken was able to take
wing. Of course we soon made a road to the tree, grew accustomed to the
disagreeable features of the swamp and contemptuously familiar with its
dangers, so that I worked anywhere in it I chose with other assistance;
but no trip was so hard and disagreeable as the first. Mr. Porter
insisted upon finishing the Little Chicken series, so that 'deserve' is
a poor word for any honour that might accrue to him for his part in the
book."

This was the nucleus of the book, but the story itself originated from
the fact that one day, while leaving the swamp, a big feather with a
shaft over twenty inches long came spinning and swirling earthward and
fell in the author's path. Instantly she looked upward to locate the
bird, which from the size and formation of the quill could have been
nothing but an eagle; her eyes, well trained and fairly keen though
they were, could not see the bird, which must have been soaring above
range. Familiar with the life of the vulture family, the author changed
the bird from which the feather fell to that described in "Freckles."
Mrs. Porter had the old swamp at that time practically untouched, and
all its traditions to work upon and stores of natural history material.
This falling feather began the book which in a few days she had
definitely planned and in six months completely written. Her title for
it was "The Falling Feather," that tangible thing which came drifting
down from Nowhere, just as the boy came, and she has always regretted
the change to "Freckles." John Murray publishes a British edition of
this book which is even better liked in Ireland and Scotland than in
England.

As "The Cardinal" was published originally not by Doubleday, Page &
Company, but by another firm, the author had talked over with the
latter house the scheme of "Freckles" and it had been agreed to publish
the story as soon as Mrs. Porter was ready. How