🔖 Gene Stratton-Porter (1863 1924) was an American author, naturalist, and photographer. She was one of the first women to form a movie studio and production company. Although her first love was her nature books, her romance novels were very successful and provided the funds for her nature studies. In Freckles a nameless waif has the job of guarding the boundaries of a large tract of the dense Indiana swamps. He is very familiar with this area: an area he has learned to know through keen observation. He gives his heart to one of its inhabitants, a girl he calls the Swamp Angel.