You never, never could have drifted from the thistle-patch.
"Where did you find the courage to go into the Limberlost and face its
terrors? You inherited it from the blood of a brave father, dear heart.
Where did you get the pluck to hold for over a year a job that few men
would have taken at all? You got it from a plucky mother, you bravest
of boys. You attacked single-handed a man almost twice your size, and
fought as a demon, merely at the suggestion that you be deceptive and
dishonest. Could your mother or your father have been untruthful? Here
you are, so hungry and starved that you are dying for love. Where
did you get all that capacity for loving? You didn't inherit it from
hardened, heartless people, who would disfigure you and purposely leave
you to die, that's one sure thing. You once told me of saving your big
bullfrog from a rattlesnake. You knew you risked a horrible death when
you did it. Yet you will spend miserable years torturing yourself with
the idea that your own mother might have cut off that hand. Shame on
you, Freckles! Your mother would have done this----"
The Angel deliberately turned back the cover, slipped up the sleeve, and
laid her lips on the scars.
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