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."
This was the nucleus of the book, but the story itself originated
from the fact that one day, while leaving the swamp, a big
feather with a shaft over twenty inches long came spinning and
swirling earthward and fell in the author's path. Instantly she
looked upward to locate the bird, which from the size and
formation of the quill could have been nothing but an eagle; her
eyes, well trained and fairly keen though they were, could not
see the bird, which must have been soaring above range.
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