Good morning, friends. For a University class last year, I wrote a series of annotations on children’s books I cherish. I learned so much from reading and reflecting and would like to share with you all. In a world in which so much is dark and painful, children’s literature, the wisest literature in the library, is an burning and a shining light. We continue our series with:
“Freckles,” a children’s classic (Stratton-Porter, Gene. Grossett and Dunlap. 1904) is the timeless and beloved story of a young disabled Irish orphan boy who finds work he loves, a woman to venerate and to share his life with, a found family, the home he has never had, and a name.
The story opens when Freckles, a homely, red haired, tall, spare Irish boy comes down the corduroy road into the lumber camp in the vast Indiana wetland known as the Limberlost and asks Cook if he may speak to the Boss in charge of the lumber company. The boy’s straightforward manner and obvious heart hunger move the heart of the Boss, McLean, and he offers him the job of guardianship of the Limberlost and the valuable timber therein. The work will be grueling, hard labor in the hot sun, and dangerous, because of the many wild creatures who make the wetland their home, but Freckles’ grit and faithfulness convince McLean to hire him and give him the chance to prove himself.
And prove himself he does. His job entails walking a seven mile circuit around the wetland twice a day, making sure that the wires that fence in the timber are in place, and that no one is trying to steal the valuable trees. And at first, he is terrified by the mysterious bird calls and movements of wild creatures of the wetland. He is frightened of the many rattlesnakes that travel with impunity through the grasses and of the utter desolation of the Limberlost. Then, he begins to realize what companionship can be found in the company of the birds. He begins to feed them until they are tame enough to eat out of his hand. He calls them “me chickens.”
The birds are not the only companions Freckles finds. Duncan, the big Scottish foreman, and his wife, Sarah, mother of several small children, provide Freckles with a room and board and the parental love for which his starved heart is yearning. McLean visits the Limberlost regularly and finds in Freckles a guard faithful and brave and always dependable. Freckles finds in McLean the first mentor and guide he has ever known. The older man helps Freckles to secure books to help him learn the names of the wild birds and moths and flowers of the woodlands, to feed the boy’s insatiable desire to learn.
It isn’t long before Freckles has another chance to prove himself to the good, kind Boss. A man from the lumber gang offers him a certain amount of money to sell McLean out, and Freckles promptly gives him his answer by rousting him in a fair fight and sending him packing. Not for any amount of money will Freckles betray a sacred trust. McLean responds to his fealty by choosing to educate him and make Freckles his own son. When asked why, he responds simply, “Because I love you, Freckles.”
He finds further friendship and companionship in the Bird Woman, a naturalist and photographer, and her young protégée, a young girl whom Freckles names The Angel. Together, the three of them frighten off a gang of thieves who are attempting to steal some of the valuable timber.
But the thieves are not frightened away for long. They come back with buddies, take Freckles captive, threaten him with death and dishonor, and begin to steal valuable timber. The Angel sees what is happening and rides for help, thereby saving Freckles’ life.
Freckles, in turn, lays down his own life to save the Angel. When a terrible accident happens in the lumber camp, Freckles pushes the Angel aside and takes the falling tree on his own body. He is sure that he is so badly injured and so far from help that he must succumb to his injuries; but the Angel takes it upon herself to save his life. In hospital, he falls into a deep depression. All his life, he has been haunted by the fact that he is an orphan, left abandoned on the steps of a children’s home, with one hand cut off. He does not know who his parents are. He feels he has no right to offer himself to the Angel in love, because she is so finely bred and a gentleman’s daughter. The Angel goes on a quest to find his family, and she discovers that he has living relatives who are landed gentry back in the Old Country. Freckles, who has been homeless, placeless, and nameless all his life, now has a family, a name, a history, and the knowledge that his parents loved him. He is Terence O’More, he is courting the Angel as an equal, he is son to McLean, and he is going to Grand Rapids to become educated. But his heart will always be in the Limberlost, and he prefers a simple home in the wetlands of Indiana to all the riches and splendor of the Old Country.
To my knowledge, “Freckles” did not win any awards, but it was a bestseller in its heyday, and it remains a beloved classic today. It has been made into four movies.
The text was written for children and young people, but in my experience, people of all ages love the story of Freckles! My Mom read it to me when I was five and she enjoyed it as much as I did.
My copy is not illustrated, but I have seen illustrations for this book that capture the fashions and styles of the time period. For my part, the prose is so richly descriptive that I didn’t need illustrations.
This book would be excellent to use in a classroom for teaching the history of conservation.
There are many weaknesses in the text. Setting aside for a moment the old fashioned nature of the prose, which is part of the charm, there are many sentence constructions and word choices that would never make it past line and copy editors of today. There are several plot holes that stretch incredulity and these, too, would never make it past a modern developmental editor. The character of the Bird Woman is obviously a self-insert for the author. The character of the Angel is a bit of a Mary Sue, as we would say today. The character of Freckles is a bit idealized. But the strength of the text is that the power of the characterization and the natural descriptions of the Limberlost shine through the text and set at nought those anachronisms of speech and plot.
Gene Stratton-Porter was an early American twentieth century naturalist, feminist, photographer, conservationist, and writer. Born and raised in Indiana, she wrote of the wild places “untouched since the dawn of time” and preserved them in her books. “A Girl of the Limberlost” is a sequel to “Freckles.”
I love this book beyond words and past all expression. For me, it captures the innocence of the world before the Great War and the wonder and majesty of the great Midwest and the goodness that is to be found in people.