For the first time, that answer was enough.
The blue-cap farmer became one of the boy's most enthusiastic supporters.
He attended nearly every public presentation about The Bellwether.
He brought friends to the museum.
He showed visitors the old photograph from his grandmother's album.
And whenever someone mentioned the anchor, he told the same story.
“I was standing right there.”
He would point toward the field.
“Kid said it was an anchor. I said he was crazy.”
Then he'd laugh.
“Turns out he was right.”
The boy eventually became tired of hearing it.
One afternoon, he complained to his father.
“He keeps telling everybody.”
The farmer smiled.
“That's because he's proud of you.”
The boy frowned.
“He laughed at me.”
His father nodded.
“Yes.”
The child looked toward the neighbor's pickup.
Then back at his father.
“Why does he keep talking about being wrong?”
The farmer considered that.
Then answered.
“Maybe because he learned something.”
The boy thought about it.
His father continued.
“Some people spend their whole lives pretending they never make mistakes.”
He looked toward the older neighbor.
“Others figure out that admitting one doesn't make them smaller.”
The boy nodded slowly.
Then smiled.
“I guess.”
His father laughed.
“And to be fair, you did find a ship in a cornfield.”
The boy grinned.
“Not in the field.”
His father raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“The anchor was in the field.”
The child pointed toward the cliffs.
“The ship was in the hillside.”
The farmer stared.
Then burst out laughing.
“All right, Professor.”
The boy laughed with him.
And the conversation ended the way many of their conversations now ended.
Not with an argument.
But with two people enjoying the fact that they had learned something together.
Two years after the discovery, Alder Bend held a small community gathering near the old harbor overlook.
The location was chosen carefully.
Visitors could see the cliffs and the protected historic area from a safe trail without entering unstable ground.
The county had installed educational signs explaining the old inlet, the ship's disappearance, and the connection between historic landforms and modern drainage.
A modest memorial recognized the people who helped residents escape during the storm of 1901.
It included the ship's crew.
The relief workers.
The harbor families.
And the volunteers whose names could be established from surviving records.
One section described the thirteen-year-old girl who carried a lantern during the rescue.