Nan awoke to a new day with the feeling that the loss of her treasured
doll must have been a bad dream. But it was not. Another search of her
room and the closet assured her that it was a horrid reality.
She might have lost many of her personal possessions without a pang;
but not Beautiful Beulah. Nan could not tell her aunt or the rest of
the family just how she felt about it. She was sure they would not
understand.
The doll had reminded her continually of her home life. Although the
stay of her parents in Scotland was much more extended than they or Nan
had expected, the doll was a link binding the girl to her old home life
which she missed so much.
Her uncle and aunt had tried to make her happy here at Pine Camp. As far
as they could do so they had supplied the love and care of Momsey and
Papa Sherwood. But Nan was actually ill for her old home and her old
home associations.
On this morning, by herself in her bedroom, she cried bitterly before
she appeared before the family.
“I have no right to make them feel miserable just because my heart, is,
breaking,” she sobbed aloud. “I won't let them see how bad I feel. But
if I don't find Beulah, I just know I shall die!”
Could she have run to Momsey for comfort it would have helped, Oh, how
much!
“I am a silly,” Nan told herself at last, warmly. “But I cannot help it.
Oh, dear! Where can Beulah have gone?”
She bathed her eyes well in the cold spring water brought by Tom that
she always found in the jug outside her door in the morning, and removed
such traces of tears as she could; and nobody noticed when she went out
to breakfast that her eyelids were puffy and her nose a bit red.
The moment Rafe caught sight of her he began to squall, supposedly like
an infant, crying:
“Ma-ma! Ma-ma! Tum an' take Too-tums. Waw! Waw! Waw!”
After all her hurt pride and sorrow, Nan would have called up a laugh
at this. But Tom, who was drinking at the water bucket, wheeled with the
full dipper and threw the contents into Rafe's face. That broke off the
teasing cousin's voice for a moment; but Rafe came up, sputtering and
mad.
“Say! You big oaf!” he shouted. “What you trying to do?”
“Trying to be funny,” said Tom, sharply. “And you set me the example.”
“Now, boys!” begged Aunt Kate. “Don't quarrel.”
“And, dear me, boys,” gasped Nan, “please don't squabble about me.”
“That big lummox!” continued Rafe, still angry. “Because dad backs
him up and says he ought to lick me, he does this. I'm going to defend
myself. If he does a thing like that again, I'll fix him.”
Tom laughed in his slow way and lumbered out. Uncle Henry did not hear
this, and Nan was worried. She thought Aunt Kate was inclined to side
with her youngest boy. Rafe would always be “the baby” to Aunt Kate.
At any rate Nan was very sorry the quarrel had arisen over her. And she
was careful to say nothing to fan further the flame of anger between
her cousins. Nor did she say anything more about the lost doll. So the
family had no idea how heartsore and troubled the girl really was over
the mystery.
It hurt her the more because she could talk to nobody about Beulah.
There was not a soul in whom she could confide. Had Bess Harley been
here at Pine Camp Nan felt that she could not really expect sympathy
from her chum at this time; for Bess considered herself quite grown up
and her own dolls were relegated to the younger members of her family.
Nan could write to her chum, however, and did. She could write to
Momsey, and did that, too; not forgetting to tell her absent parents
about old Toby Vanderwiller, and his wife and his grandson, and of their
dilemma. If only Momsey's great fortune came true, Nan was sure that
Gedney Raffer would be paid off and Toby would no longer have the threat
of dispossession held over him.
Nan Sherwood wrote, too, to Mr. Mangel, the principal of the Tillbury
High School, and told him about the collection the crippled grandson
of the old lumberman had made, mentioning those specimens which had
impressed her most. She had some hope that the strange moth might be
very valuable.
Nan was so busy writing letters, and helping Aunt Kate preserve some
early summer fruit, that she did not go far from the house during the
next few days, and so did not see even Margaret Llewellen. The other
girl friends she had made at Pine Camp lived too far away for her to
visit them often or have them come to call on her.
A long letter from Papa Sherwood about this time served to take Nan's
mind off the mystery, in part, at least. It was a nice letter and most
joyfully received by the girl; but to her despair it gave promise of no
very quick return of her parents from Scotland:
“Those relatives of your mother's whom we have met here, Mr. Andrew
Blake's family, for instance, have treated us most kindly. They are,
themselves, all well-to-do, and gentlefolk as well. The disposal by
Old Hughie Blake, as he was known hereabout, of his estate makes no
difference to the other Blakes living near Emberon,” wrote Mr. Sherwood.
“It is some kin at a distance, children of a half sister of Old Hughie,
who have made a claim against the estate. Mr. Andrew Blake, who is well
versed in the Scotch law, assures us these distant relatives have not
the shadow of a chance of winning their suit. He is so sure of this that
he has kindly offered to advance certain sums to your mother to tide us
over until the case is settled.
“I am sending some money to your Uncle Henry for your use, if any
emergency should arise. You must not look for our return, my dear Nancy,
too soon. Momsey's health is so much improved by the sea voyage and the
wonderfully invigorating air here, that I should be loath to bring her
home at once, even if the matter of the legacy were settled. By the way,
the sum she will finally receive from Mr. Hugh Blake's estate will be
quite as much as the first letter from the lawyer led us to expect. Some
of your dearest wishes, my dear, may be realized in time.”
“Oh! I can go to Lakeview Hall with Bess, after all!” cried Nan, aloud,
at this point.
Indeed, that possibility quite filled the girl's mind for a while.
Nothing else in Papa Sherwood's letter, aside from the good news of
Momsey's improved health, so pleased her as this thought. She hastened
to write a long letter to Bess Harley, with Lakeview Hall as the text.
Summer seemed to stride out of the forest now, full panoplied. After the
frost and snow of her early days at Pine Camp, Nan had not expected
such heat. The pools beside the road steamed. The forest was atune from
daybreak to midnight with winged denizens, for insect and bird life
seemed unquenchable in the Big Woods.
Especially was this true of the tamarack swamp. It was dreadfully hot
at noontide on the corduroy road which passed Toby Vanderwiller's little
farm; but often Nan Sherwood went that way in the afternoon. Mr. Mangel,
the school principal, had written Nan and encouraged her to send a full
description of some of Corson Vanderwiller's collection, especially of
the wonderful death's-head moth, to a wealthy collector in Chicago. Nan
did this at once.
So, one day, a letter came from the man and in it was a check for
twenty-five dollars.
“This is a retainer,” the gentleman wrote. “I am much interested in your
account of the lame boy's specimens. I want the strangely marked moth
in any case, and the check pays for an option on it until I can come and
see his specimens personally.”
Nan went that very afternoon to the tamarack swamp to tell the
Vanderwillers this news and give Toby the check. She knew poor Corson
would be delighted, for now he could purchase the longed-for silk dress
for his grandmother.
The day was so hot and the way so long that Nan was glad to sit down
when she reached the edge of the sawdust strip, to rest and cool off
before attempting this unshaded desert. A cardinal bird--one of the
sauciest and most brilliant of his saucy and brilliant race, flitted
about her as she sat upon a log.
“You pretty thing!” crooned Nan. “If it were not wicked I'd wish to have
you at home in a cage. I wish--”
She stopped, for in following the flight of the cardinal her gaze
fastened upon a most surprising thing off at some distance from the
sawdust road. A single dead tree, some forty feet in height and almost
limbless, stood in solemn grandeur in the midst of the sawdust waste. It
had been of no use to the woodcutters and they had allowed the shell of
the old forest monarch to stand. Now, from its broken top, Nan espied a
thin, faint column of blue haze rising.
It was the queerest thing! It was not mist, of course and she did not
see how it could be smoke. There was no fire at the foot of the tree,
for she could see the base of the bole plainly. She even got up and ran
a little way out into the open in order to see the other side of the
dead tree.
The sky was very blue, and the air was perfectly still. Almost Nan was
tempted to believe that her eyes played her false. The column was almost
the color of the sky itself, and it was thin as a veil.
How could there be a fire in the top of that tall tree?
“There just isn't! I don't believe I see straight!” declared Nan to
herself, moving on along the roadway. “But I'll speak to Toby about it.”