Chapter XIX. OLD TOBY VANDERWILLER
Nan was sure her Cousin Rafe would be drowned, as well as his foreman.She covered her eyes for a moment, and could not look.
Then a great cheer arose from the men in the boat and those stillremaining on the bank of the river. Her uncle, beside her, muttered:
"Plucky boy! Plucky boy!"
Her eyes flew open and she looked again. In the midst of the scatteringfoam she saw a small log over which her cousin had flung his left arm;his other arm was around the foreman, and Rafe was bearing his headabove water. Turner had been struck and rendered senseless by the blow.
The small log slipped through a race between two shallows, ahead of thegreater timber. The latter indeed grounded for a moment and that gavethe victim of the accident and his rescuer a chance for life.
They shot ahead with the log to which Rafe clung. The men in the boatshouted encouragement, and rowed harder. In a minute the boat camealongside the log and two of the rivermen grabbed the boy and theunconscious foreman. They had them safely in the boat, and the boat wasat the shore again in three minutes.
By that time the big boss himself, Mr. Blackton, was tearing out overthe logs from the other shore, axe in hand, to cut the key log of thejam, the formation of which Turner had tried to prevent. A hundred logshad piled up against the stoppage by this time and there promised to bea bad time at the bend if every one did not work quickly.
Before Nan and her uncle could reach the foot of the bluff, Turner hadregained consciousness and was sitting on a stranded log, holding hishead. Rafe, just as he had come out of the river, was out on the logsagain lending a hand at the work so necessary to the success of thedrive.
"Oh, dear me!" cried Nan, referring to her cousin, "he ought to go homeand change his clothes. He'll get his death of cold."
"He'll work hard enough for the next hour to overcome the shock of thecold water. It's lucky if he isn't in again before they get that troubleover," responded Uncle Henry. Then he added, proudly: "That's the kindof boys we raise in the Big Woods, Nannie. Maybe they are rough-spokenand aren't really parlor-broke, but you can depend on 'em to dosomething when there's anything to do!"
"Oh, Uncle!" cried the girl. "I think Rafe is just the bravest boy Iever saw. But I should think Aunt Kate would be scared every hour he isaway from home, he is so reckless."
She was very proud herself of Rafe and wrote Bess a lot about him. SlowTom did not figure much in Nan Sherwood's letters, or in her thoughts,about this time. Thoughts and letters were filled with handsome Rafe.
It was while the Blackton drive was near Pine Camp that Nan becamepersonally acquainted with old Toby Vanderwiller. It was after dinnerthat day that she met Margaret and Bob Llewellen and the three went downto the river bank, below the bridge, to watch the last of the Blacktondrive.
The chuck-boat had pushed off into the rough current and was bobbingabout in the wake of the logs; but all the men had not departed.
"That's old Toby," said Bob, a black-haired boy, full of mischief. "Hedon't see us. Le's creep up and scare him."
"No," said Nan, decidedly; "don't you dare!"
"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 allusas 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 theright sleeve of his woolen shirt to bare his shoulder and upper rightarm. 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 wasnot mischievous like her brother, Margaret seldom showed traits oftenderness or affection. Nan was in some doubt as to whether the strangegirl liked her. Margaret often patted Nan's cheeks and admired hersmooth skin; but she never expressed any real affection. She waspositively the oddest little piece of humanity Nan had ever met.
Once Nan asked her if she had a doll. "Doll?" snarled Margaret withsurprising energy. "A'nt Matildy give me one once't an' I throwed it asfar as I could inter the river, so I did! Nasty thing! Its face was allpainted and rough."
Nan could only gasp. Drown a doll-baby! Big girl as she consideredherself, she had a very tender spot in her heart for doll-babies.
Margaret Llewellen only liked people with fair faces and smoothcomplexions; she could not possibly be interested in old TobyVanderwiller, who seemed always to need a shave, and whose face, likethat of Margaret's grandfather, was "wizzled."
Nan ran down to him and asked: "Can't I help you, Mr. Vanderwiller? Didyou get badly hurt?"
"Hullo!" grunted Toby. "Ain't you Hen Sherwood's gal?"
"I'm his niece," she told him. "Can I help?"
"Well, I dunno. I got a wallop from one o' them logs when we wasbreakin' that jam, and it's scraped the skin off me arm----"
"Let me see," cried Nan, earnestly. "Oh! Mr. Vanderwiller! That must bepainful. 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'sarm with clean water and then bound her own handkerchief over theabrasion under the rather doubtful rag that Toby himself supplied.
"You're sure handy, Sissy," he said, rising and allowing her to help himinto the shirt again and on with his coat. "Now I'll hafter toddle alongor Tim will give me a call-down. Much obleeged. If ye get inter thetam'rack swamp, come dry-foot weather, stop and see me an' my oldwoman."
"Oh! I'd love to, Mr. Vanderwiller," Nan cried. "The swamp must be fullof just lovely flowers now."
The old man's face wrinkled into a smile, the first she had seen uponit. 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 andsich. You come see us and my old woman'll show ye. She's a master handat huntin' up all kind o' weeds I tell her."
"I'll surely come, when the weather gets warmer," Nan called after Tobyas the old man dogtrotted down the bank of the river. But he did notanswer and was quickly out of sight.