Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp Part 2

Nan began to giggle at that. She knew what her mother meant. Of course, Mr. Sherwood, being at the head of one of the mill departments, would know all about the announcement of the shut-down; but they would keep up the fiction that they did not know it by being particularly cheerful when he came home from work.

So Nan giggled and swallowed back her sobs. Surely, if Momsey could present a cheerful face to this family calamity, she could!

The girl ran her slim fingers into the thick mane of her mother's coiled hair, glossy brown hair through which only a few threads of white were speckled.

"Your head feels hot, Momsey," she said anxiously. "Does it ache?"

"A wee bit, honey," confessed Mrs. Sherwood.

"Let me take the pins out and rub your poor head, dear," said Nan. "You know, I'm a famous 'ma.s.sagist.' Come do, dear."

"If you like, honey."

Thus it was that, a little later, when Mr. Sherwood came home with feet that dragged more than usual on this evening, he opened the door upon a very beautiful picture indeed.

His wife's hair was "a glory of womanhood," for it made a tent all about her, falling quite to the floor as she sat in her low chair. Out of this canopy she looked up at the brawny, serious man, roguishly.

"Am I not a lazy, luxurious person, Papa Sherwood?" she demanded.

"Nan is becoming a practical maid, and I presume I put upon the child dreadfully, she is good-natured, like you, Robert."

"Aye, I know our Nan gets all her good qualities from me, Jessie," said her husband. "If she favored you she would, of course, be a very hateful child."

He kissed his wife tenderly. As Nan said, he always "cleaned up" at the mills and "came home kissable."

"I ought to be just next door to an angel, if I absorbed the virtues of both my parents," declared Nan briskly, beginning to braid the wonderful hair which she had already brushed. "I often think of that."

Her father poked her tentatively under the shoulder blades with a blunt forefinger, making her squirm.

"I don't feel the wings sprouting yet, Nancy," he said, in his dry way.

"I hope not, yet!" exclaimed the girl. "I'd have to have a new winter coat if you did, and I know we can't afford that just now."

"You never said a truer word, Nan," replied Mr. Sherwood, his voice dropping to a less cheerful level, as he went away to change his coat and light the hanging lamp in the dining room where the supper table was already set.

Mother and daughter looked at each other rather ruefully.

"Oh, dear me!" whispered Nan. "I never do open my mouth but I put my foot in it!"

"Goodness!" returned her mother, much amused. "That is an acrobatic feat that I never believed you capable of, honey."

"We-ell! I reminded Papa Sherwood of our hard luck instead of being bright and cheerful like you."

"We will give him a nice supper, honey, and make him forget his troubles. Time enough to call to order the ways and means committee afterward." Her husband came back into the kitchen as Nan finished arranging the hair. "Come, Papa Sherwood!" cried the little lady. "Hot biscuit; the last of the honey; sweet pickles; sliced cold ham; and a beautiful big plum cake that our Nan made this morning before school time, her own self. You MUST smile at all those dainties."

And the husband and father smiled. They all made an effort to help each other. But they knew that with the loss of his work would doubtless come the loss of the home. During the years that had elapsed, Mr. Sherwood had paid in part for the cottage; but now the property was deteriorating instead of advancing in value. He could not increase the mortgage upon it. Prompt payment of interest half-yearly was demanded. And how could he meet these payments, not counting living expenses, when his income was entirely cut off?

Mr. Sherwood was forty-five years old, an age at which it is difficult for a man to take up a new trade, or to obtain new employment at his old one.

Chapter III. "FIs.h.i.+NG"

Nan told of Bess Harley's desire to have her chum accompany her to Lakeview Hall the following autumn, as a good joke.

"I hope I'll be in some good situation by that time," she said to her mother, confidentially, "helping, at least, to support myself instead of being a burden upon father and you."

"It's very unselfish of you to propose that, honey," replied her mother.

"But, perhaps, such a sacrifice as the curtailment of your education will not be required of you."

"But, my DEAR!" gasped Nan. "I couldn't go to Lakeview Hall. It would cost, why! a pile!"

"I don't know how much a pile is, translated into coin of the realm, honey," responded Mrs. Sherwood with her low, sweet laugh. "But the only thing we can give our dear daughter, your father and I, is an education.

That you MUST have to enable you to support yourself properly when your father can do no more for you."

"But I s'pose I've already had as much education as most girls in Tillbury get. So many of them go into the mills and factories at my age.

If they can get along, I suppose I can."

"Hus.h.!.+" begged her mother quickly. "Don't speak of such a thing. I couldn't bear to have you obliged to undertake your own support in any such way.

"Both your father and I, honey, had the benefit of more than the ordinary common-school education. I went three years to the Tennessee Training College; I was prepared to teach when your father and I met and married. He obtained an excellent training for his business in a technical college. We hoped to give our children, if we were blessed with them, an even better start in life than we had.

"Had your little brother lived, honey," added Mrs. Sherwood tenderly, "we should have tried to put him through college, and you, as well. It would have been something worthwhile for your father to work for. But I am afraid all these years that his money has been wasted in attempts to benefit my health."

"Oh, Momsey! Don't say it, that way," urged Nan. "What would we ever do without you? But I sometimes think how nice it would be had I been a boy, my own brother, for instance. A boy can be so much more help than a girl."

"For shame!" cried her mother, laughing. "Do you dare admit a boy is smarter than a girl, Nan?"

"Not smarter. Only better able to do any kind of work, I guess. They wouldn't let me work in the file shop, or drive a grocery wagon."

"Goodness! Listen to the child!" gasped Mrs. Sherwood. "I should hope not! Why, honey, is your mind running continually on such dreadful things? I am afraid your father and I allow you to hear us talk too frequently about family matters. You must not a.s.sume the family's burdens at your age."

There was that trend to Nan Sherwood's character, however. With all her blithesomeness and high spirits she was inclined to be serious in thought.

This conversation occurred several days after the evening when, on their way home from school, Nan and her school chum, Bess Harley, had read the yellow poster at the gate of the At.w.a.ter Mills.

The district surrounding the mills, in which most of the hands lived, had put on an aspect of mourning. Some of the workmen and their families had already packed up and gone. Most of the houses occupied by the hands were owned by the At.w.a.ter Company, and if the poor people remained till January 15th, the wages due them then would be eaten up by the rent of the tenements.

So they were wise to leave when they could. Many who remained would be a burden upon the taxpayers of Tillbury before the winter was over.

Nan and her folks were not in such a sad situation as the laborers, of course. Mr. Sherwood had a small sum in bank. He had, too, a certain standing in the community and a line of credit at the stores that he might have used.

Debt, however, save that upon their house, he had fought to keep out of all his married life. That his equity in the Amity Street cottage was so small was not his fault; but he owed not any man.

"Now we must go fis.h.i.+ng," Mrs. Sherwood said, in her sprightly way, when the little family really discussed the unfortunate situation after the announcement of the shut-down of the mills was made public.

"Goodness, Momsey! What a reckless creature you are," laughed Mr.

Sherwood. "Waste our precious time in such employment, and in the dead of winter, too?"