Freckles (Annotated)

Freckles (Annotated) Review

The hero is an adult orphan, just under twenty years of age, with bright red hair and a freckled complexion. His left hand is missing at the wrist, and has been since before he can remember. Raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage, he speaks with a slight Irish accent, "scarcely definite enough to be called a brogue." Exhausted after days of walking, he applies for a job with the Grand Rapids lumber company, guarding timber in the Limberlost Swamp. The lumber company field manager, McLean, is impressed by the boy's polite assertiveness and hires him despite his youth and disability. He gives his name only as "Freckles", insisting that he has no name of his own. He claims the name given him in the orphanage (which we never learn) "is no more my name than it is yours". So that he has a name to put down on the books, McLean gives Freckles the name of his own father, James Ross McLean. Freckles' duty is to twice a day walk the perimeter of the lumber company's land, a seven mile trek through lonely swampland, and to be on the watch for those who aim to steal the expensive timber. McLean's chief worry is Black Jack Carter, who has sworn to smuggle several priceless trees out of the swamp. Freckles' weapons are limited to a revolver and a stout stick, which he carries at all times and uses to test to wire that marks the company's boundaries. At night Freckles boards with Duncan, head teamster for the lumber company, and Duncan's wife, who becomes a mother figure to Freckles.
Initially terrified of the wilderness after a lifetime in an urban environment, Freckles first conquers his fears and then develops an interest in the wildlife of the swamp. He is touched by the beauty he sees, and his frustration and curiosity leads him to purchase several books on natural history, and look upon the creatures of the swamp as his friends. He creates a "room" in the swamp, where he has transplanted the most unique plant specimens he can find. After a year in the swamp, his hard work and faithfulness lead McLean to offer a thousand dollars to anyone who can show him a cut stump from a tree stolen under Freckles' watch. Freckles' gets an opportunity to prove his capabilities as a guard when Wessner, a recently fired lumberman, comes upon Freckles on his rounds and offers him five hundred dollars to look the other way while Black Jack's gang of thieves steals several prime trees. After initially playing dumb to gain information, Freckles puts his gun and stick aside and fights Wessner using only his one fist. He wins, and drives Wessner from the swamp.


Includes a Biography of the Author