"A rod inside the swamp on a road leading to an oil well we mired
to the carriage hubs. I shielded my camera in my arms and before we
reached the well I thought the conveyance would be torn to pieces
and the horse stalled. At the well we started on foot, Mr. Porter
in kneeboots, I in waist-high waders. The time was late June; we
forced our way between steaming, fetid pools, through swarms of
gnats, flies, mosquitoes, poisonous insects, keeping a sharp watch
for rattlesnakes. We sank ankle deep at every step, and logs we
thought solid broke under us. Our progress was a steady succession
of prying and pulling each other to the surface. Our clothing was
wringing wet, and the exposed parts of our bodies lumpy with bites
and stings. My husband found the tree, cleared the opening to the
great prostrate log, traversed its unspeakable odours for nearly
forty feet to its farthest recess, and brought the baby and egg to
the light in his leaf-lined hat.
"We could endure the location only by dipping napkins in deodorant
and binding them over our mouths and nostrils. Every third day for
almost three months we made this trip, until Little Chicken was
able to take wing. Of course we soon made a road to the tree, grew
accustomed to the disagreeable features of the swamp and
contemptuously familiar with its dangers, so that I worked anywhere
in it I chose with other assistance; but no trip was so hard and
disagreeable as the first. Mr. Porter insisted upon finishing the
Little Chicken series, so that `deserve' is a poor word for any
honour that might accrue to him for his part in the book.
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