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.”
“Hush!” 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 assume 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 Atwater 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 Atwater 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 fishing,” 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?”
“Now, Papa Sherwood, I don't mean that kind of fishing at all!” cried
the little woman gaily. “We are going to fish for employment for you,
perhaps for a new home.”
“Oh!” gasped Nan. The thought of deserting the little cottage on Amity
Street was a dreadful shock.
“We must face that possibility,” said her mother firmly. “It may be.
Tillbury will see very hard times now that the mills are closed. Other
mills and shops will follow suit.”
“Quite true, Momsey,” agreed the husband and father.
“I am a very logical person, am I not?” said the smiling little lady.
“But the fishing?” cried Nan curiously.
“Ah, yes. I am coming to that,” said her mother. “The fishing, to be
sure! Why, we are going to write letters to just everybody we know, and
some we only know by hearsay, and find out if there isn't a niche for
Papa Sherwood somewhere outside Tillbury.”
“So we can!” cried Nan, clapping her hands.
“I am afraid there is general depression in my line of business
everywhere,” suggested Mr. Sherwood. “For some years the manufacturers
have been forcing cotton goods upon a false market. And the recent
attempt to help the cotton growers by boosting the price of raw cotton
will come near to ruining the mills and mill workers. It is always
so. In an attempt to benefit one class of the people another class is
injured.”
“Now, never mind politics, sir!” cried his little wife. “We poor, weak
women aren't supposed to understand such things. Only when Nan and I get
the vote, and all the other millions of women and girls, we will have no
class legislation. 'The greatest good for the greatest number' will be
our motto.”
Mr. Sherwood only smiled. He might have pointed out that in that very
statement was the root of all class legislation. He knew his wife's
particular ideas were good, however, her general political panacea was
rather doubtful. He listened thoughtfully as she went on:
“Yes, we must fish for a new position for papa. We may have to go away
from here. Perhaps rent the house. You know, we have had good offers for
it.”
“True,” admitted Mr. Sherwood.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Nan, but below her breath so that Momsey and Papa
Sherwood did not hear the sigh.
“I am going to write to Cousin Adair MacKenzie, in Memphis. He is quite
prominent in business there,” pursued Mrs. Sherwood. “We might find a
footing in Memphis.”
Mr. Sherwood looked grave, but said nothing. He knew that the enervating
climate of the Southern river city would never do for his wife. Change
of climate might benefit her greatly; the doctors had all said so of
late; but not that change.
“Then,” continued Nan's mother, “there is your brother, Henry, up in
Michigan.”
“Oh! I remember Uncle Henry,” cried Nan. “Such a big, big man!”
“With a heart quite in keeping with the size of his body, honey,” her
mother quickly added. “And your Aunt Kate is a very nice woman. Your
uncle has lumber interests. He might find something for your father
there.”
“I'll write to Hen, Jessie,” Mr. Sherwood said decisively. “But a lumber
camp is no place for you. Let's see, his mail address is Hobart Forks,
isn't it? Right in the heart of the woods. If you weren't eaten up by
black gnats, you would be by ennui,” and he chuckled.
“Goodness!” cried Mrs. Sherwood, making big eyes at him. “Are those a
new kind of mosquito? Ennui, indeed! Am I a baby? Is Nan another?”
“But think of Nan's education, my dear,” suggested Mr. Sherwood.
“I ought to work and help the family instead of going to school any
longer,” Nan declared.
“Not yet, Daughter, not yet,” her father said quickly. “However, I will
write to Hen. He may be able to suggest something.”
“It might be fun living in the woods,” Nan said. “I'm not afraid of
gnats, or mosquitoes, or, or on-wees!”
She chanced to overhear her father and Dr. Christian talking the next
day on the porch, and heard the wise old physician say:
“I'm not sure I could countenance that, Robert. What Jessie needs is an
invigorating, bracing atmosphere. A sea voyage would do her the greatest
possible good.”
“Perhaps a trip to Buffalo, down the lakes?”
“No, no! That's merely an old woman's home-made plaster on the wound.
Something more drastic. Salt air. A long, slow voyage, overseas. It
often wracks the system, but it brings the patient to better and more
stable health. Jessie may yet be a strong, well woman if we take the
right course with her.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Sherwood wrote to his brother. He had to do so, it
seemed. There was no other course open to him.
And while he fished in that direction, Momsey threw out her line toward
Memphis and Adair MacKenzie. Mr. Sherwood pulled in his line first,
without much of a nibble, it must be confessed.
“Dear Bob,” the elder Sherwood wrote: “Things are flatter than a
stepped-on pancake with me. I've got a bunch of trouble with old Ged
Raffer and may have to go into court with him. Am not cutting a stick
of timber. But you and Jessie and the little nipper,” (“Consider!”
interjected Nan, “calling me 'a little nipper'! What does he consider a
big 'nipper'?”) “come up to Pine Camp. Kate and I will be mighty glad to
have you here. Tom and Rafe are working for a luckier lumberman than I,
and there's plenty of room here for all hands, and a hearty welcome for
you and yours as long as there's a shot in the locker.”
“That's just like Hen,” Nan's father said. “He'd divide his last crust
with me. But I don't want to go where work is scarce. I must go where it
is plentiful, where a man of even my age will be welcome.”
“Your age, Papa Sherwood! How you talk,” drawled Nan's mother in her
pretty way. “You are as young as the best of 'em yet.”
“Employers don't look at me through your pretty eyes, Momsey,” he
returned, laughing.
“Well,” said his wife, still cheerfully, “my fishing seems to be
resultless yet. Perhaps the bait's gone off the hook. Had I better haul
in the line and bait again? I was always doing that when I went fishing
with Adair and his brothers, years ago, when I was a little girl.”
Her husband shook his head. “Have patience, Jessie,” he said.
He had few expectations from the Memphis letter; yet there was a most
surprising result from it on the way, something which by no possibility
could the little family in the Amity Street cottage have suspected.