“Oh, look there, Nan!” cried Bess Harley suddenly, as they turned
into High Street from the avenue on which Tillbury's high school was
situated.
“Look where?” queried Nan Sherwood promptly. “Up in the air, down on the
ground or all around?” and she carried out her speech in action,
finally spinning about on one foot in a manner to shock the more staid
Elizabeth.
“Oh, Nan!”
“Oh, Bess!” mocked her friend.
She was a rosy-cheeked, brown-eyed girl, with fly-away hair, a blue
tam-o'-shanter set jauntily upon it, and a strong, plump body that she
had great difficulty in keeping still enough in school to satisfy her
teachers.
“Do behave, Nan,” begged Bess. “We're on the public street.”
“How awful!” proclaimed Nan Sherwood, making big eyes at her chum. “Why
folks know we're only high-school girls, so, of course, we're crazy!
Otherwise we wouldn't BE high-school girls.”
“Nonsense!” cried Bess, interrupting. “Do be reasonable, Nan. And look
yonder! What do you suppose that crowd is at the big gate of the Atwater
Mills?”
Nan Sherwood's merry face instantly clouded. She was not at all a
thoughtless girl, although she was of a sanguine, cheerful temperament.
The startled change in her face amazed Bess.
“Oh dear!” the latter cried. “What is it? Surely, there's nobody hurt in
the mills? Your father-----”
“I'm afraid, Bess dear, that it means there are a great many hurt in the
mills.”
“Oh, Nan! How horridly you talk,” cried Bess. “That is impossible.”
“Not hurt in the machinery, not mangled by the looms,” Nan went on to
say, gravely. “But dreadfully hurt nevertheless, Bess. Father has been
expecting it, I believe. Let's go and read the poster.”
“Why it is a poster, isn't it?” cried Bess. “What does it say?”
The two school girls, both neatly dressed and carrying their bags of
text books, pushed into the group before the yellow quarter-sheet poster
pasted on the fence.
The appearance of Nan and Bess was distinctly to their advantage when
compared with that of the women and girls who made up the most of the
crowd interested in the black print upon the poster.
The majority of these whispering, staring people were foreigners. All
bore marks of hard work and poverty. The hands of even the girls in the
group were red and cracked. It was sharp winter weather, but none wore
gloves.
If they wore a head-covering at all, it was a shawl gathered at the
throat by the clutch of frost-bitten fingers. There was snow on the
ground; but few wore overshoes.
They crowded away from the two well-dressed high-school girls, looking
at them askance. Bess Harley scarcely noticed the mill-hands' wives and
daughters. She came of a family who considered these poor people little
better than cattle. Nan Sherwood was so much interested in the poster
that she saw nothing else. It read:
NOTICE: Two weeks from date all departments of these mills will be
closed until further notice. Final payment of wages due will be made
on January 15th. Over-supply of our market and the prohibitive price
of cotton make this action a necessity. ATWATER MILLS COMPANY. December
28th.
“Why, dear me!” murmured Bess. “I thought it might really be something
terrible. Come on, Nan. It's only a notice of a vacation. I guess most
of them will be glad to rest awhile.”
“And who is going to pay for their bread and butter while the poor
creatures are resting?” asked Nan seriously, as the two girls moved away
from the group before the yellow poster.
“Dear me, Nan!” her chum cried. “You do always think of the most
dreadful things. It troubles me to know anything about poverty and
poor people. I can't help them, and I don't want to know anything about
them.”
“If I didn't know that you are better than your talk, Bess,” said Nan,
still gravely, “I'd think you a most callous person. You just don't
understand. These poor people have been fearing this shut-down for
months. And all the time they have been expecting it they have been
helpless to avert it and unable to prepare for it.”
“They might have saved some of their wages, I suppose,” said Bess. “I
heard father say the other night how much money the mills paid out in a
year to the hands, some perfectly en_or_mous sum.”
“But just think how many people that has to be divided among,” urged
Nan. “Lots of the men earn only eight or nine dollars a week, and have
families to support.”
“Well, of course, they don't have to be supported as we are,” objected
the easy-minded Bess. “Anyway my father says frugality should be taught
to the poor just the same as reading and writing. They ought to learn
how to save.”
“When you earn only just enough to supply your needs, and no more, how
can you divide your income so as to hoard up any part of it?”
“Dear me! Don't ask questions in political economy out of school, Nan!”
cried Bess, forgetting that she had started the discussion herself. “I
just HATE that study, and wish we didn't have to take it! I can't answer
that question, anyway.”
“I'll answer it then,” declared Nan. “If you are a mill-hand your
stomach won't let you save money. There probably won't be a dozen
families affected by this shut-down who have more than ten dollars
saved.”
“Goodness! You don't mean that that's true? Why, dad gives me that much
to spend on myself each month,” Bess cried. “The poor things! Even
if they are frowsy and low, I am sorry for them. But, of course, the
shut-down doesn't trouble you, Nan. Not personally, I mean. Your father
has had a good position for so many years-----”
“I'm not at all sure that it won't trouble us,” Nan interposed gravely.
“But of course we are not in danger of starvation.”
She felt some delicacy about entirely confiding in Bess on the subject.
Nan had heard the pros and cons of the expected closing of the mills
discussed at home almost every day for weeks past; but family secrets
should never be mentioned outside the family circle, as Nan very well
knew.
“Well,” signed Bess, whose whole universe revolved around a central
sun called Self, as is the case with many girls brought up by indulgent
parents. “I hope, dear, that this trouble won't keep you from entering
Lakeview with me next fall.”
Nan laughed. “There never was a chance of my going with you, Bess, and
I've told you so often enough-----”
“Now, don't you say that, Nan Sherwood!” cried her chum. “I've just made
up my mind that you shall go, and that's all there is to it! You've just
got to go!”
“You mean to kidnap me and bear me off to that ogre's castle, whether or
not?”
“It's the very nicest school that ever was,” cried Bess. “And such a
romantic place.”
“Romantic?” repeated Nan curiously.
“Yes, indeed! A great big stone castle overlooking Lake Michigan, a
regular fortress, they say. It was built years ago by Colonel Gilpatrick
French, when he came over from Europe with some adventurous Irishmen
who thought all they had to do was to sail over to Canada and the whole
country would be theirs for the taking.”
“Goodness me! I've read something about that,” said Nan, interested.
“Well, Lakeview Hall, as the school is called, was built by that rich
Colonel French. And they say there are dungeons under it.”
“Where they keep their jams and preserves, now, I suppose?” laughed Nan.
“And secret passages down to the shore of the lake. And the great hall
where the brave Irishmen used to drill is now the assembly hall of the
school.”
“Sounds awfully interesting,” admitted Nan.
“And Dr. Beulah Prescott, who governs the hall, the preceptress,
you know, is really a very lovely lady, my mother says,” went on the
enthusiastic Bess. “MY mother went to school to her at Ferncliffe.”
“Oh, Bess,” Nan said warmly, “It must be a perfectly lovely place! But I
know I can never go there.”
“Don't you say that! Don't you say that!” cried the other girl. “I won't
listen to you! You've just got to go!”
“I'm afraid you'll have to kidnap me, then,” repeated Nan, with a
rueful smile. “I'm very sure that my father won't be able to afford it,
especially now that the mills will close.”
“Oh, Nan! I think you're too mean,” wailed her friend. “It's my pet
project. You know, I've always said we should go to preparatory school
together, and then to college.”
Nan's eyes sparkled; but she shook her head.
“We sat together in primary school, and we've always been in the same
grade through grammar and into high,” went on Bess, who was really very
faithful in her friendships. “It would just break my heart, Nan, if we
were to be separated now.”
Nan put her arm about her. They had reached the corner by Bess's big
house where they usually separated after school.
“Don't you cry, honey!” Nan begged her chum. “You'll find lots of nice
girls at that Lakeview school, I am sure. I'd dearly love to go with
you, but you might as well understand right now, dear, that my folks are
poor.”
“Poor!” gasped Bess.
“Too poor to send me to Lakeview,” Nan went on steadily. “And with the
mills closing as they are, we shall be poorer still. I may have to get a
certificate as Bertha Pike did, and go to work. So you mustn't think any
more about my going to that beautiful school with you.”
“Stop! I won't listen to you another moment, Nan Sherwood!” cried Bess,
and sticking her fingers in her ears, she ran angrily away and up the
walk to the front door.
Nan walked briskly away toward Amity Street. She did not turn back to
wave her hand as usual at the top of the hill.