and
wanted it. He stooped under the wires and entered the swamp. With a
little searching, he found a big piece of thick bark loose on a log and
carefully peeling it, carried it out and covered the print so that the
first rain would not obliterate it.

When he reached his room, he tenderly laid the hat upon his bookshelf,
and to wear off his awkwardness, mounted his wheel and went spinning on
trail again. It was like flying, for the path was worn smooth with his
feet and baked hard with the sun almost all the way. When he came to the
bark, he veered far to one side and smiled at it in passing. Suddenly
he was off the wheel, kneeling beside it. He removed his hat, carefully
lifted the bark, and gazed lovingly at the imprint.

"I wonder what she was going to say of me voice," he whispered. "She
never got it said, but from the face of her, I believe she was liking it
fairly well. Perhaps she was going to say that singing was the big thing
I was to be doing. That's what they all thought at the Home. Well, if
it is, I'll just shut me eyes, think of me little room, the face of her
watching, and the heart of her beating, and I'll raise them. Damn them,
if singing will do it, I'll raise them from the benches!"

With this dire threat, Freckles knelt, as at a wayside spring, and
deliberately laid his lips on the footprint. Then he arose, appearing as
if he had been drinking at the fountain of gladness.

CHAPTER VIII

Wherein Freckles Meets a Man of Affairs and Loses Nothing by the
Encounter

"Weel, I be drawed on!" exclaimed Mrs. Duncan.

Freckles stood before her, holding the Angel's hat.

"I've been thinking this long time that ye or Duncan would see that
sunbonnets werena braw enough for a woman of my standing, and ye're a
guid laddie to bring me this beautiful hat."

She turned it around, examining the weave of the straw and the foliage
trimmings, passing her rough fingers over the satin ties delightedly. As
she held it up, admiring it, Freckles' astonished eyes saw a new side of
Sarah Duncan. She was jesting, but under the jest the fact loomed strong
that, though poor, overworked, and with none but God-given refinement,
there was something in her soul crying after that bit of feminine
finery, and it made his heart ache for her. He resolved that when he
reached the city he would send her a hat, if it took fifty dollars to do
it.

She lingeringly handed it back to him.

"It's unco guid of ye to think of me," s