talked of her incessantly.

"You needn't be thinking," he said to the goldfinch, "that because I'm
coming down this line alone day after day, it's always to be so. Some of
these times you'll be swinging on this wire, and you'll see me coming,
and you'll swing, skip, and flirt yourself around, and chip up right
spunky: 'SEE ME?' I'll be saying 'See you? Oh, Lord! See her!' You'll
look, and there she'll stand. The sunshine won't look gold any more, or
the roses pink, or the sky blue, because she'll be the pinkest, bluest,
goldest thing of all. You'll be yelling yourself hoarse with the
jealousy of her. The sawbird will stretch his neck out of joint, and
she'll turn the heads of all the flowers. Wherever she goes, I can
go back afterward and see the things she's seen, walk the path she's
walked, hear the grasses whispering over all she's said; and if there's
a place too swampy for her bits of feet; Holy Mother! Maybe--maybe she'd
be putting the beautiful arms of her around me neck and letting me carry
her over!"

Freckles shivered as with a chill. He sent the cudgel whirling skyward,
dexterously caught it, and set it spinning.

"You damned presumptuous fool!" he cried. "The thing for you to be
thinking of would be to stretch in the muck for the feet of her to be
walking over, and then you could hold yourself holy to be even of that
service to her.

"Maybe she'll be wanting the cup me blue-and-brown chickens raised their
babies in. Perhaps she'd like to stop at the pool and see me bullfrog
that had the goodness to take on human speech to show me the way out of
me trouble. If there's any feathers falling that day, why, it's from the
wings of me chickens--it's sure to be, for the only Angel outside the
gates will be walking this timberline, and every step of the way I'll be
holding me breath and praying that she don't unfold wings and sail away
before the hungry eyes of me."

So Freckles dreamed his dreams, made his plans, and watched his line.
He counted not only the days, but the hours of each day. As he told them
off, every one bringing her closer, he grew happier in the prospect of
her coming. He managed daily to leave some offering at the big elm log
for his black chickens. He slipped under the line at every passing, and
went to make sure that nothing was molesting them. Though it was a long
trip, he paid them several extra visits a day for fear a snake, hawk, or
fox might have found the baby. For now his chickens