McLean's mind traveled to the night, almost a year before, when he had engaged Freckles, a stranger.
The Boss bent, covering the hurt arm with one hand and laying the other with a caress on the boy's forehead.

Freckles stirred at his touch, and whispered as softly as the swallows under the eaves: "If you're coming this way--tomorrow--be pleased to step over--and we'll repate--the chorus softly!" "Bless the gritty devil," muttered McLean.
Then he went out and told Mrs.Duncan to keep close watch on Freckles, also to send Duncan to him at the swamp the minute he came home.
Following the trail to the line and back to the scent of the fight, the Boss entered Freckles' study quietly, as if his spirit, keeping there, might be roused, and gazed around with astonished eyes.
How had the boy conceived it?
What a picture he had wrought in living colors! He had the heart of a painter.

He had the soul of a poet.

The Boss stepped carefully over the velvet carpet to touch the walls of crisp verdure with gentle fingers.

He stood long beside the flower bed, and gazed at the banked wall of bright bloom as if he doubted its reality.
Where had Freckles ever found, and how had he transplanted such ferns?
As McLean turned from them he stopped suddenly.
He had reached the door of the cathedral.