The little shingled cottage stood back from the street, in a deeper yard
than most of its neighbors. It was built the year Nan was born, so the
roses, the honeysuckle, and the clematis had become of stalwart growth
and quite shaded the front and side porches.
The front steps had begun to sag a little; but Mr. Sherwood had blocked
them up. The front fence had got out of alignment, and the same able
mechanic had righted it and set the necessary new posts.
The trim of the little cottage on Amity Street had been painted twice
within Nan's remembrance; each time her father had done the work in his
spare time.
Now, with snow on the ground and frozen turf peeping out from under
the half-melted and yellowed drifts, the Sherwood cottage was not so
attractive as in summer. Yet it was a cozy looking house with the early
lamplight shining through the kitchen window and across the porch as Nan
approached, swinging her schoolbooks.
Papa Sherwood called it, with that funny little quirk in the corner
of his mouth, “a dwelling in amity, more precious than jewels or fine
gold.”
And it was just that. Nan had had experience enough in the houses of her
school friends to know that none of them were homes like her own.
All was amity, all was harmony, in the little shingled cottage on this
short by-street of Tillbury.
It was no grave and solemn place where the natural outburst of childish
spirits was frowned upon, or one had to sit “stiff and starched” upon
stools of penitence.
No, indeed! Nan had romped and played in and about the cottage all her
life. She had been, in fact, of rather a boisterous temperament until
lately.
Her mother's influence was always quieting, and not only with her little
daughter. Mrs. Sherwood's voice was low, and with a dear drawl in it, so
Nan declared.
She had come from the South to Northern Illinois, from Tennessee, to
be exact, where Mr. Sherwood had met and married her. She had grace and
gentleness without the languor that often accompanies those qualities.
Her influence upon both her daughter and her husband was marked. They
deferred to her, made much of her, shielded her in every way possible
from all that was rude or unpleasant.
Yet Mrs. Sherwood was a perfectly capable and practical housekeeper, and
when her health would allow it she did all the work of the little family
herself. Just now she was having what she smilingly called “one of her
lazy spells,” and old Mrs. Joyce came in to do the washing and cleaning
each week.
It was one of Mrs. Sherwood's many virtues that she bore with a smile
recurrent bodily ills that had made her a semi-invalid since Nan was a
very little girl. But in seeking medical aid for these ills, much of the
earnings of the head of the household had been spent.
The teakettle was singing when Nan entered the “dwelling in amity”, and
her mother's low rocker was drawn close to the side-table on which the
lamp stood beside the basket of mending.
Although Mrs. Sherwood could not at present do her own laundry-work, she
insisted upon darning and patching and mending as only she could darn
and patch and mend.
Mr. Sherwood insisted that a sock always felt more comfortable on his
foot after “Momsey” had darned it than when it was new. And surely she
was a very excellent needlewoman.
This evening, however, her work had fallen into her lap with an idle
needle sticking in it. She had been resting her head upon her hand and
her elbow on the table when Nan came in. But she spoke in her usual
bright way to the girl as the latter first of all kissed her and then
put away her books and outer clothing.
“What is the good word from out of doors, honey?” she asked.
Nan's face was rather serious and she could not coax her usual
smile into being. Her last words with Bess Harley had savored of a
misunderstanding, and Nan was not of a quarrelsome disposition.
“I'm afraid there isn't any real good word to be brought from outside
tonight, Momsey,” she confessed, coming back to stand by her mother's
chair.
“Can that be possible, Daughter!” said Mrs. Sherwood, with her low,
caressing laugh. “Has the whole world gone wrong?”
“Well, I missed in two recitations and have extras to make up, in the
first place,” rejoined Nan ruefully.
“And what else?”
“Well, Bess and I didn't have exactly a falling out; but I couldn't help
offending her in one thing. That's the second trouble.”
“And is there a 'thirdly,' my dear?” queried little Mrs. Sherwood
tranquilly.
“Oh, dear, yes! The worst of all!” cried Nan. “The yellow poster is up
at the mills.”
“The yellow poster?” repeated her mother doubtfully, not at first
understanding the significance of her daughter's statement.
“Yes. You know. When there's anything bad to announce to the hands
the Atwater Company uses yellow posters, like a small-pox, or typhoid
warning. The horrid thing! The mills shut down in two weeks, Momsey, and
no knowing when they will open again.”
“Oh, my dear!” was the little woman's involuntary tribute to the
seriousness of the announcement.
In a moment she was again her usual bright self. She drew Nan closer
to her and her own brown eyes, the full counterpart of her daughter's,
winkled merrily.
“I tell you what let's do, Nan,” she said.
“What shall we do, Momsey?” repeated the girl, rather lugubriously.
“Why, let's not let Papa Sherwood know about it, it will make him feel
so bad.”
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 'massagist.' 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.