water an' let it cook all the next day."

"Oh!"

"An' then ye throw in a piece of grin'stone with the loon, and set it
to bilin' again. When ye kin stick a fork in the grin'stone, the loon's
done!"

Nan joined in Toby's loud laugh at this old joke, and pretty soon
thereafter they came to the hummock on which the Vanderwillers lived.

Chapter XXII. ON THE ISLAND

In the winter it was probably dreary enough; but now the beauty of the
swelling knoll where the little whitewashed house stood, with the tiny
fields that surrounded it, actually made Nan's heart swell and the tears
come into her eyes.

It seemed to her as though she had never seen the grass so green as
here, and the thick wood that encircled the little farm was just a hedge
of blossoming shrubs with the tall trees shooting skyward in unbroken
ranks. A silver spring broke ground at the corner of the paddock fence.
A pool had been scooped out for the cattle to drink at; but it was not
muddied, and the stream tinkled down over the polished pebbles to the
wider, more sluggish stream that meandered away from the farm into the
depths of the swamp.

Toby told her, before they reached the hummock, that this stream rose in
the winter and flooded all about the farm, so that the latter really was
an island. Unless the ice remained firm they sometimes could not drive
out with either wagon or sled for days at a time.

"Then you live on an island," cried Nan.

"Huh! Ye might say so," complained Toby. "And sometimes we feel like as
though we was cast away on one, too."

But the girl thought it must really be great fun to live on an island.

They went up to the house along the bank of the clear stream. On the
side porch, vine-covered to the eaves, sat an old woman rocking in a low
chair and another figure in what seemed at a distance, to be a child's
wagon of wickerwork, but with no tongue and a high back to it.

"Here's Gran'pop!" cried a shrill voice and the little wagon moved
swiftly to the edge of the steps. Nan almost screamed in fear as it
pitched downward. But the wheels did not bump over the four steps
leading to the ground, for a wide plank had been laid slantingly at that
side, and over this the wheels ran smoothly, if rapidly.

"You have a care there, Corson!" shrilled the old lady after the
cripple. "Some day you'll break your blessed neck."

Nan thought he was a little boy, until they met. Then she was surprised
to see a young man's head set u