He made himself neat, swallowed a few bites, then came so eagerly that Mrs.Duncan yielded, although she said she very well knew all the time that his supper would be spoiled.
Lifting the lid, they removed the packing and found in that box books on birds, trees, flowers, moths, and butterflies.

There was also one containing Freckles' bullfrog, true to life.

Besides these were a butterfly-net, a naturalist's tin specimen-box, a bottle of cyanide, a box of cotton, a paper of long, steel specimen-pins, and a letter telling what all these things were and how to use them.
At the discovery of each new treasure, Freckles shouted: "Will you be looking at this, now ?" Mrs.Duncan cried: "Weel, I be drawed on!" The eldest boy turned a somersault for every extra, while the baby, trying to follow his example, bunched over in a sidewise sprawl and cut his foot on the axe with which his mother had prized up the box-lid.
That sobered them, they carried the books indoors.

Mrs.Duncan had a top shelf in her closet cleared for them, far above the reach of meddling little fingers.
When Freckles started for the trail next morning, the shining new specimen-box flashed on his back.

The black "chicken," a mere speck in the blue, caught the gleam of it.