Corson looked disappointed. Nan asked, curiously: “Why do you want the dollar?”
“To git Gran'mom a silk dress,” he said promptly. “She's admired to have one all her life, and ain't never got to git it yet.”
“I'm sure that's nice of you,” declared Nan, warmly. “I'll try to sell some of your collection.”
“Well!” he jerked out. “It's got to be pretty soon, or she won't git to wear it much. I heard her tell Gran'pop so.”
This impressed Nan Sherwood as being very pitiful, for she was of a sympathetic nature. And it showed that Corson Vanderwiller, even if he was simple-minded, possessed one of the great human virtues, gratitude.
Chapter XXIII. A MYSTERY
On this, her first visit to the island in the swamp, Nan said nothing to old Toby Vanderwiller about the line dispute between her uncle and Gedney Raffer, which the old lumberman was supposed to be able to settle if he would.
Mrs. Vanderwiller insisted upon Toby's hitching up an old, broken-kneed pony he owned, and taking her over the corduroy road to Pine Camp, where she arrived before dark. To tell the truth, little Margaret Llewellen was not the only person who thought it odd that Nan should want to go to see the Vanderwillers in the heart of the tamarack swamp. Nan's uncle and aunt and cousins considered their guest a little odd; but they made no open comment when the girl arrived at home after her visit.
Nan was full of the wonders she had seen, commonplace enough to her relatives who had lived all their lives in touch with the beautiful and queer things of Nature as displayed in the Michigan Peninsula. Perhaps none but Tom appreciated her ecstasy over crippled Corson Vanderwiller's collection.