"Oh! Mr. Vanderwiller!
That must be painful. Haven't you anything to put on it?"
"Nothin' but this rag," grunted Toby, drily. "An' ye needn't
call me 'Mister,' Sissy. I ain't useter bein' addressed that
way."
Nan laughed; but she quickly washed the scraped patch on the old
man's arm with clean water and then bound her own handkerchief
over the abrasion under the rather doubtful rag that Toby himself
supplied.
"You're sure handy, Sissy," he said, rising and allowing her to
help him into the shirt again and on with his coat. "Now I'll
hafter toddle along or Tim will give me a call-down. Much
obleeged. If ye get inter the tam'rack swamp, come dry-foot
weather, stop and see me an' my old woman."
"Oh! I'd love to, Mr. Vanderwiller," Nan cried. "The swamp must
be full of just lovely flowers now."
The old man's face wrinkled into a smile, the first she had seen
upon it. Really! He was not a bad looking man, after all.
"You fond of posies, sissy?" he asked.
"Indeed I am!" she cried.
"There's a-plenty in the swamp," he told her. "And no end of
ferns and sich. You come see us and my old woman'll show ye.
She's a master hand at huntin' up all kind o' weeds I tell her."
"I'll surely come, when the weather gets warmer," Nan called
after Toby as the old man dogtrotted down the bank of the river.
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