"Mr. Crocker doesn't actually mistreat the boy?" Penny questioned.
"Herman couldn't be very good to anyone even if he tried. Perry was his daughter Ella's son, and I guess old Herman thought more of Ella than he did of any other member of his family. When she died he took the boy to raise."
"I judge his own wife isn't living," remarked Mr. Nichols.
"No, poor Ida went to her rest come twelve years ago this fall. Folks said she wouldn't have taken down with pneumonia if Herman had given her enough to eat."
Neither Penny nor her father encouraged Mrs. Masterbrook to talk, but all the way to the cottage she chattered about first one person and then another. With no effort on her part, Penny gathered many items of interesting information concerning Herman Crocker.
"Folks around here call him a miser," the woman revealed. "When his sister Jenny died, she left quite a tidy little fortune. Some people don't think Herman ever inherited very much of it, but I could tell 'em a few things about that matter if I were minded to do it."
"I'm sorry," interrupted Mr. Nichols, "but the Crocker family isn't of great interest to us. Suppose we forget about it."
"I thought you wanted to hear," retorted Mrs. Masterbrook indignantly. She subsided into hurt silence.
Penny felt sorry that her father had discouraged the woman from talking. Although she did not approve of idle gossip, she had been eager to learn more about Herman Crocker and his queer relatives. She wondered too if Mrs. Masterbrook could tell her anything about Mr. Crocker's nephew, Walter.
Penny and her father left the housekeeper at the cottage and then drove back to the village for supplies.