“Aw, shucks! Girls ain't no fun,” the boy growled. “Mag's bad enough, but you air wuss'n she, Nan Sherwood. What's old Toby to you? He's allus as cross as two sticks, anyway.”
“We won't make him any crosser,” said Nan, laughing. “What's the good?”
Nan saw that the old man had his coat off, and had slipped down the right sleeve of his woolen shirt to bare his shoulder and upper right arm. He was clumsily trying to bandage the arm.
“He's got hurt,” Nan cried to Margaret. “I wonder how?”
“Dunno,” returned the smaller girl, carelessly. Although she was not mischievous like her brother, Margaret seldom showed traits of tenderness or affection. Nan was in some doubt as to whether the strange girl liked her. Margaret often patted Nan's cheeks and admired her smooth skin; but she never expressed any real affection. She was positively the oddest little piece of humanity Nan had ever met.
Once Nan asked her if she had a doll. “Doll?” snarled Margaret with surprising energy. “A'nt Matildy give me one once't an' I throwed it as far as I could inter the river, so I did! Nasty thing! Its face was all painted and rough.”
Nan could only gasp. Drown a doll-baby! Big girl as she considered herself, she had a very tender spot in her heart for doll-babies.
Margaret Llewellen only liked people with fair faces and smooth complexions; she could not possibly be interested in old Toby Vanderwiller, who seemed always to need a shave, and whose face, like that of Margaret's grandfather, was “wizzled.”
Nan ran down to him and asked: “Can't I help you, Mr. Vanderwiller? Did you get badly hurt?”
“Hullo!” grunted Toby. “Ain't you Hen Sherwood's gal?”