“Look.” She put a hand on some hard mass that rested on the lower shelf. “We brought that up in our net.”
“What is it?” Jeanne asked.
“Lift it.” Vivian smiled.
Lightly Jeanne grasped it. Then she let out a low exclamation. “Whew! How heavy!”
“Eighty pounds,” said Vivian, not without a show of pride. “Solid copper.
“You see,” she went on, allowing her eyes to sweep the place, “it is just this that has made me realize that history and geography are not just dull things to be studied and forgotten. When father brought in that mass of copper, I wanted to know all about it, how it got there and all that.
“Well,” she sighed, “I didn’t find out everything, because no one seems to know whether it was put in its present form by the grinding of glaciers or by the heat of a volcano. I did find out a great deal, though.
“Then,” she hurried on, “one day while I was hoeing in our garden I found this.” She held up a copper spear point. “It belonged to the time when Indians roamed the island, building huge fires; then cracking away the rocks, they uncovered copper. I read all I could about that.
“Then—” she caught her breath. “Then Mr. Tolman over at Rock Harbor gave me this.” She held up a curious sort of pistol. “They called it a pepper-box. It is more than a hundred years old. Perhaps it belongs to fur-trading days, perhaps to the beginning of the white copper-hunter. Anyway, it took me along in my study. And—”
“And the first thing you knew,” Jeanne laughed, “history and geography had come alive for you.”