Then, forgetting all his customary reserve with the Boss, the pent-up boyishness in the lad broke forth.

With an eloquence of which he never dreamed he told his story.

He talked with such enthusiasm that McLean never took his eyes from his face or shifted in the saddle until he described the strange bird-lover, and then the Boss suddenly bent over the pommel and laughed with the boy.
Freckles decorated his story with keen appreciation and rare touches of Irish wit and drollery that made it most interesting as well as very funny.

It was a first attempt at descriptive narration.

With an inborn gift for striking the vital point, a naturalist's dawning enthusiasm for the wonders of the Limberlost, and the welling joy of his newly found happiness, he made McLean see the struggles of the moth and its freshly painted wings, the dainty, brilliant bird-mates of different colors, the feather sliding through the clear air, the palpitant throat and batting eyes of the frog; while his version of the big bird's courtship won for the Boss the best laugh he had enjoyed for years.
"They're in the middle of a swamp now" said Freckles.