Freckles
“I’ll never forget the summer I read Freckles”, Mrs. Downs said one afternoon when I had escaped from the heat outside into the cool dimness of her basement shop. “I was fifteen and I sat out on the front porch swing and read it cover to cover.” Her face warmed with a reminiscent light. “And do you know what I did when it was finished? I closed the book, sat there for a moment or two—and then I just opened it and started all over again.”
“It’s that good?” I raised my eyebrows. There was no better endorsement as far as I was concerned.
And thus I was introduced to Gene Stratton-Porter, an author I have since grown to love as a kindred soul. My mother read Freckles out loud to the three of us, and to this day when I look at the flowery border of the sampler I was stitching at the time I can still see as clear as ever the beautiful grin of a plucky young Irish boy and the dancing eyes of the golden-haired ‘Swamp Angel’. I can hear the sounds of the birds in the brush of the Limberlost as only Gene Stratton-Porter could give them voice, and smell the damp forest loam rising in the morning stillness as Freckles made his lonely circuit in the office of timber guard for the swamp.
Freckles is a tale of true hearts, of moral valor and pure devotion. As the story unfolds the reader is captivated by the charm of a young man who won’t be trodden down by his troubles and who overcomes towering obstacles with a truly brave spirit. An acquaintance with Freckles, as with so many of Gene Stratton-Porter’s characters, is one that will genuinely enrich your life.