Freckles

My book club read a book written in 1904 named Freckles by Gene Stratton-Porter.  Gene is the author but her real name is Geneva.  I liked the story because it had a lot of nature in it.  The author wanted to call it "The Black Feather," and that is the name of the book published in England but the publisher liked Freckles better. I would have preferred the black feather.  In this story turkey vultures play a big role and that doesn't happen very often.  The setting is in a swamp in Indiana.  Much is described about the snakes, moths, birds, butterflies and trees of this swamp which is first harvested of all the lumber and later drained for farmland. For all of the swamp the story is a sad one but for the people in the story, the narrative is so sickly sweet it set my teeth on edge.  I try to imagine someone reading a novel written in 2016 in the year 2116 and what would they think of the writing?  It's hard to judge a book that old fairly.  The story of Freckles was engaging and it went by fast. We had a good discussion about it.  I believe Gene Stratton-Porter was a nature writer and she threw this story in so the publisher would publish her other books about the moths of the swamp.