Freckles (novel)

"Freckles" is a novel written by the American writer and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter. It is primarily set in the Limberlost Swamp area of Indiana, with brief scenes set in Chicago. The title character also appears briefly in Porter's "A Girl of the Limberlost".

Plot summary

The hero is a one-handed adult orphan, described as a "plucky waif", who has been raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage and yet speaks with a powerful Irish accent. He applies for a job guarding timber in the swamp, and is accepted despite his youth and the disability of having only one hand. He gives his name only as "Freckles", insisting that he has no name of his own, and that the name given him in the orphanage (which we never learn) "is no more my name than it is yours".

He develops an interest in the wildlife of the swamp and in natural history, and falls in love with a girl who is never given any other name than "the Swamp Angel". The story's primary action involves his self-education, his loyalty to his employer, his growing love for the Angel (and hers for him) and his conviction that it's better and finer to deny his love than to court her "without knowledge of honorable birth." Though he is loved and admired by all he meets, he considers himself unworthy of the Angel because of his apparent bastardy and because his birth-parents seem to have abused him. Eventually he risks his life to save the Angel, and she goes on a quest to find his birthparents in order to ease his mind.

External links

* [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/111/111.txt Online text of Freckles at Project Gutenberg]