sedly at the Angel, who sat on one of his fancy
seats, playing his accompaniment on her banjo.

"You are a fraud," she said. "Here you went last week and led me to
think that there was the making of a great singer in you, and now you
are singing--do you know how badly you are singing?"

"Yis," said Freckles meekly. "I'm thinking I'm too happy to be singing
well today. The music don't come right only when I'm lonesome and sad.
The world's for being all sunshine at prisint, for among you and Mr.
McLean and the Bird Woman I'm after being THAT happy that I can't keep
me thoughts on me notes. It's more than sorry I am to be disappointing
you. Play it over, and I'll be beginning again, and this time I'll hold
hard."

"Well," said the Angel disgustedly, "it seems to me that if I had all
the things to be proud of that you have, I'd lift up my head and sing!"

"And what is it I've to be proud of, ma'am?" politely inquired Freckles.

"Why, a whole worldful of things," cried the Angel explosively. "For
one thing, you can be good and proud over the way you've kept the timber
thieves out of this lease, and the trust your father has in you. You can
be proud that you've never even once disappointed him or failed in what
he believed you could do. You can be proud over the way everyone speaks
of you with trust and honor, and about how brave of heart and strong of
body you are I heard a big man say a few days ago that the Limberlost
was full of disagreeable things--positive dangers, unhealthful as it
could be, and that since the memory of the first settlers it has been a
rendezvous for runaways, thieves, and murderers. This swamp is named for
a man that was lost here and wandered around 'til he starved. That man I
was talking with said he wouldn't take your job for a thousand dollars
a month--in fact, he said he wouldn't have it for any money, and you've
never missed a day or lost a tree. Proud! Why, I should think you would
just parade around about proper over that!

"And you can always be proud that you are born an Irishman. My father
is Irish, and if you want to see him get up and strut give him a teeny
opening to enlarge on his race. He says that if the Irish had decent
territory they'd lead the world. He says they've always been handicapped
by lack of space and of fertile soil. He says if Ireland had been as big
and fertile as Indiana, why, England wouldn't ever have had the upper
hand. She'd only be an appendage. Fancy England