Freckles

Freckles is a one-handed, plucky waif of an orphan, who has been raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage and yet speaks with a powerful Irish accent. He applies for a job guarding timber in the swamp, and is accepted despite his youth and the disability of his having only one hand. He insists that the name given him in the orphanage "is no more my name than it is yours." Freckles develops an interest in the wildlife of the swamp and in natural history, and falls in love with the Swamp Angel. The story's primary action involves his self-education, his loyalty to his employer, his growing love for the Angel (and hers for him) and his conviction that it's better and finer to deny his love than to court her "without knowledge of show more honorable birth." Though he is loved and admired by all he meets, he considers himself unworthy of the Angel. Eventually he risks his life to save the Angel, and she goes on a quest to find his birthparents. show less

Mom recommended Gene Stratton-Porter’s books to me several years ago when she started collecting them, but it took me quite a while to actually get around to reading the first one. I’m so glad I recently picked up Freckles; it’s a gentle story, but told with such heart and genuine delight in the world that I fell in love with the setting and characters right away!

This is a story of friendship, hard work, nature, and family. Watching Freckles’ world expand around him was one of my biggest delights in this story—where he knows hardly anything at the beginning of the book, his thirst for knowledge as the book goes on (and the ways those around him helped him learn what he needed to know) was both delightful and almost catching. show more I’d love to have a peek at some of the books he collected—and I loved the way his sanctuary was described! What a beautiful place.

There’s some adventure in the story, of course, and a sweet romance. I alternated between being slightly annoyed by the heroine and being absolutely charmed by some of the things she did. (Ditzy and/or naive main characters can be rather amusing at times.)

I was a little disappointed in one respect: Freckles is described multiple times as worshiping the girl in the story, and it’s made clear that that worship was more than he gave God. So while it was fun to see his devotion, it did somewhat cross a line for me.

If you’re looking for a sweet, lighthearted, atmospheric novel, I’d highly recommend you check out Freckles. I intend to read Girl of the Limberlost sometime soon—if this book was any indication, that one will be great! show less

Love Freckles. OK, it's way too convenient an ending, not to mention the belief in "good blood" - but it's still a magnificent story. The descriptions of the Limberlost alone - the beauty and the horror of it, the dangers and the wonder - make it wonderful to read; Freckles, and his utter determination to achieve and fulfill his promises as soon as he's given trust and responsibility, make it heart-wrenching and glorious. There are funny bits (including the Angel's first encounter with Black Jack's men...and the second, for that matter), parts that make me cry every time I read it, and parts that make me hold my breath with excitement (even though I know, pretty much, how it comes out). I first read Freckles in a B&B, on a rainy day, show more when I hadn't brought my own books (ok, hadn't brought _enough_ books); I've reread it at least a dozen times, and I expect I'll read it at least as many times again. I like some of the author's other books, but Freckles has a special place in my heart. show less

I loved this old gem. I had never heard of it, but what a lovely story. Freckles is a young man, an orphan who is on his own and trying to make his way in the world. He approaches a lumber man to apply for the position of guard of a tract of valuable forest to keep poachers at bay. The lumber man is doubtful because Freckles has a missing hand, but hires him anyway because Freckles' character seems to speak for itself. There are, of course, poachers who try to fell valuable trees and conflict in that regard, but the book is really about how Freckles falls in love with nature, with the birds and the critters and the flowers and the plants, everything and he becomes almost a Dr. Doolittle of the bird world. A nature photographer (the Bird show more Woman) and her beautiful assistant who Freckles christens Swamp Angel enter the picture and Freckles falls hard for the Angel. It is a beautiful book and Freckles is an earnest, noble, kind character who you can't help but love and cherish as much as those around him grow to love and cherish him. Heartwarming and well written! show less

This was one of my favourite books as a child, and I still find it very charming. Very 19th century, and there are a lot of assumptions that we would not make today. Read it on its own terms. If you can't accept the story, at least enjoy the descriptions of Limberlost.

I find it amusing that Freckes is thought to have come from good people and have inherited his honour and honesty and good character. From whom? From his grandfather? I still love the book, though, even if the ending overstretches my ability to believe it. (2026)

Horatio Alger meets L. M. Montgomery in Gene Stratton Porter's Freckles, the story of a one-handed orphan who makes good. Freckles wins the hearts of everyone around him and proves himself a man in the challenging environment of the swamp. It's a bit sentimental and farfetched for my tastes (and does anyone else think it's weird that several main characters don't have proper names—just "Swamp Angel" and "the Bird Woman"?). I've loved A Girl of the Limberlost since my teen years and I think I was putting this one off because I knew it could not be as good. Well, it isn't.

I was on the lookout for a copy of Freckles for years. I first read A Girl of the Limberlost (a sort of sequel to Freckles) in elementary school and loved it. While reading it, however, I got the sense that I was missing something, because everyone kept mentioning 'Freckles'. I realized that another book came before A Girl of the Limberlost and I hoped to find it and read it someday. I didn't look too hard, admittedly, but I happened upon a very old copy of Freckles in a used book store a few months ago and I have just now had the chance to read it.

To be frank, I was very disappointed. I remembered being enchanted with A Girl of the Limberlost, but I didn't like Freckles very much at all. If you love sickly sweet children's books from show more over 100 years ago, you'll probably like Freckles, but even I wasn't a huge fan. It was just a little much. I suppose my main issue was with Freckle's age. I am fine with wholesome children's classics about little boys. They're generally not too realistic concerning what I know of little boys today, but I can stand them. Freckles is a different story, however. In Freckles, the protagonist (known as, of course, 'Freckles') is 18-years-old and ages to 20 by the end. You'd never know it, however, from reading the book. Freckles acts like a 12-year-old and everyone treats him that way (indeed, some confused publishers have mistakenly put a picture of a little boy on the cover of the book, though there are no actual children among the main characters in 'Freckles'). He is always referred to as a "boy". I'm not saying that he is immature exactly, but he is altogether too wholesome and juvenile. Unless this book was intended for very young readers, Gene Stratton-Porter is talking down to her audience. Freckles characterization was too distracting and too annoying for me that I couldn't enjoy the book.

Besides that, the novel has some issues concerning vague classism, racism, and sexism, but it's not too bad for something written over a century ago. The real highlight of the book is how it portrays nature. Gene Stratton-Porter was an amateur naturalist and it really shows through the novel. Her descriptions of the Limberlost Swamp are wonderful. Some aspects of the book may be somewhat disconcerting for a modern-day environmentalist (including the depiction of loggers as the 'good guys,' the clearing of the forest as a matter of course, and the planting of non-native species in the forest) but that part is still enjoyable.

After reading Freckles, I was concerned that I had remembered wrongly and that maybe A Girl of the Limberlost wasn't as good as I once thought, but that was not the case. I found that it wasn't even really necessary to read Freckles before reading A Girl of the Limberlost. In fact, I may even advise against it.

All in all, if you wish to read Freckles because you loved A Girl of the Limberlost, I'm going to tell you that isn't necessary. In my opinion, Freckles is not as good as that book and you may find it, frankly, disappointing. I wouldn't particularly recommend Freckles to anyone, but it wasn't altogether awful. If you are able to withstand any sort of sugary tooth-decayingly sweet book from over a hundred years ago, be my guest and read it. For anyone else, you may just wind up with a toothache. show less