"You come here at four," said the Bird Woman, "and we will drive out
with some specimen boxes, and a price list, and see what you have to
sell. Are they your very own? Are you free to part with them?"

"They are mine," said Elnora. "No one but God knows I have them. Mr.
Duncan gave me the books and the box. He told Freckles about me, and
Freckles told him to give me all he left. He said for me to stick to the
swamp and be brave, and my hour would come, and it has! I know most of
them are all right, and oh, I do need the money!"

"Could you tell me?" asked the Bird Woman softly.

"You see the swamp and all the fields around it are so full," explained
Elnora. "Every day I felt smaller and smaller, and I wanted to know more
and more, and pretty soon I grew desperate, just as Freckles did. But
I am better off than he was, for I have his books, and I have a mother;
even if she doesn't care for me as other girls' mothers do for them,
it's better than no one."

The Bird Woman's glance fell, for the girl was not conscious of how much
she was revealing. Her eyes were fixed on a black pitcher filled
with goldenrod in the centre of the table and she was saying what she
thought.

"As long as I could go to the Brushwood school I was happy, but I
couldn't go further just when things were the most interesting, so I was
determined I'd come to high school and mother wouldn't consent. You see
there's plenty of land, but father was drowned when I was a baby, and
mother and I can't make money as men do. The taxes are higher every