The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-12-27
(Continued.)

FreckleS chi. k, nS were awaiting him at the edge of the clearing. They cut the frosty air about his head into black. They chased each other from Freckles and swept so closely them selves that they brushed him with their outspreac wings.
 At their feeding ground Freckles set down his old pail of scraps and swept the snow from a small level space with a broom improvised from twigs. As soon as his back was turned the birds clustered over the food. snatching scraps to carry to the nearest bushes. Several of the boldest, a big crow and couple of jays, settled on the rim and feasted at leisure, while cardf- nal that hesitated to venture fumed and scolded from twig overhe l.
 Then Freckles scattered his store. At once the ground resembled the spread mantle of Montezuma. except that this mass of gayIy colored feathers was on the backs of living birds. While they feasted Duncan gripped his wife's arm and stared in astonishment, for from the bushes and dry grass with gentle cheeping and queer, throaty chatter, as If to encourage each other, came focks of quail. Before any one saw 1t arrive big gray rabbit sat in the midst of the feast. contentedly gnawing cabbage leaf.
 "Weel. l be drawed onr' came Mrs. Duncan's tense whisper.
 'Shu-shur' cautioned Duncan.
 Lastly Freckles took of bis cap. He began filling it with handfuls of wheat from his pockets. In swarm the grain eaters rose about him nke flock of tame pigeons. They perched on his arms and the cap and, in the stress of hunger forgetting all caution, bril- liant cock cardinal and an equally gaudy jay fought for perching place on his head.
 "Weel. I'm beat!" muttered Duncan. forgetting the silence imposed on his wife. "I'll hae to give in. Seein' is believin'"
 A week later Duncan and Freckles rose from breakfast to face the bitter est morning of the winter. When 'Freckles. warmly capped and gloved. stepped to the corner of the kitchen for his scrap pail he found a pan of steaming boiled wheat on the top of it. He wheeled to Mrs. Duncan with shining face.
 'Were you fixing this warm food for me chickens or yours?" he asked.
 "It's for yours. Freckles." she said.
 Freckles faced Mrs. Duncan with trace of every pang of starved mother hunger he had ever suffered written large on his homely, splotched. narrow features.
 'Oh. how I wish you were my moth err' he cried.
 Lord love the ladr' exclaimed Mrs. Duncan. why. Freckles. are ye no bricht enough to learn without being taught by woman that l am your mither? If a great man like yourself dinna ken that learn 1t now and ne'er forget 1t. Ance woman Is the wife of any man she becomes wife to all men for having had the wifely ex- perience she kens! Ance man child has beaten his way to life under the heart of woman she is mother to all men, for the hearts of mithers are everywhere the same. Bless ye, lad die. am your mitherw
 She tucked the coarse scarf she had knit for him closer over his chest and pulled bis cap lower about his ears.
 Freckles. whipping it off and hold ing it under his arm. caught her rough, reddened hand and pressed 1t to his lips in a long kiss. Then he hurried away to hide the happy. embarrassing tears that were coming straight from his swelling heart
 Mrs. Duncan threw herself into Dun- cans erms.
 "Oh. the puir lad" she walled. "Oh. the puir mither hungry lad. He breaks my heart-'
 Duncan's arms closed convulsively about his wife. With a biz brown hand he lovingly stroked her rough sorrel hair.
 "Sarah. you're guid womanr" be said. "You're a michty guid woman,
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