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NAN SHERWOOD
AT
LAKEVIEW HALL
OR
_THE MYSTERY OF THE
HAUNTED BOATHOUSE_
BY
ANNIE ROE CARR
THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
CLEVELAND, O. NEW YORK, N.Y.
Copyright, MCMXVI by
GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
by
THE COMMERCIAL BOOKBINDING CO.
CLEVELAND, O.
NAN SHERWOOD AT LAKEVIEW HALL
CHAPTER I
THE BRAND NEW BAG
There would have been no trouble at all, Nan was sure, had it not been
for that new bag.
In the first place it was a present from her Aunt Kate Sherwood,
although Nan purchased it herself. The purchasing of most of her school
outfit was supervised by Mrs. Harley, at the same time that her own
daughter's was bought, but a few last purchases were left to the girls
and Nan and Bess certainly had a most delightful time shopping in
Chicago for a week, before they started for Lakeview Hall.
Of course, Bess' mother was right at hand to advise and guide; otherwise
careless Bess would have bought with prodigal hand, and cautious Nan's
outfit would not have been as well selected as the girl's absent mother
would have desired.
But nobody interfered with the matter of the brand new bag. Nan and her
chum went to one of the smartest leather-goods shops and selected the
shiny, russet-leather beauty without any adult interference save that of
an obliging clerk. Mrs. Henry Sherwood had saved the money herself and
insisted upon Nan's taking it and purchasing "just the handsomest
traveling bag the money would buy."
"You know, honey-bird," the good woman said to her niece, the evening
before Nan left Pine Camp--which was away up in the Peninsula of
Michigan. "You know, honey-bird, money's been scarce with your Uncle Hen
and me for some time back; but now that the trouble about the Perkins
Tract is settled, and he can go to lumbering again, we'll be all right.
"I honestly do believe, Nan, that if you hadn't made such a friend of
Toby Vanderwiller and of his wife and his crippled grandson, and if you
and your Cousin Tom hadn't helped Tobe out of the swamp when he got
mired in the big storm, that maybe the trouble about the boundary line
between your uncle's timber option and Gedney Raffer's tract, wouldn't
have been settled, in court or out, for a year or two.
"That being the case," Mrs. Sherwood pursued, "your Uncle Henry and I,
and Tom and Rafe, would have been mighty poor for a long time to come.
Now the prospect's bright before us, child, and I want you should take
this I've saved from my egg and berry money, and buy you just the
handsomest traveling bag you can get for it.
"I've seen 'em all pictured out in the mail-order catalogue--full of
brushes, and combs, and cut-glass bottles to hold sweet scent, and
tooth-powder, and all sorts of didos. That's the kind I want you to
have."
"Oh! but Aunt Kate!" Nan Sherwood said doubtfully, "this is a great deal
of money to spend for a hand bag."
"I wish 'twas twice as much!" declared the lumberman's wife, vigorously.
"Twice as much?" Nan gasped.
"Yes. Then the things could be gold trimmed instead of only silver. I
want you to have the very nicest bag of any girl going to that big
school."
The awe-struck Nan and the delighted Elizabeth were quite sure that the
woman from the Michigan Peninsula had her wish when they walked out of
the leather-goods shop, the handsome russet bag firmly clutched by its
possessor.
The bag was packed at once, for its purchase was almost the last bit of
shopping there was to do before the chums from Tillbury left Chicago.
Mrs. Harley rose early in the morning to go with them to the train. She
declared that afterward she intended going back to the hotel to "sleep
for a week."
"I'd rather superintend the general fall cleaning at home than get you
two girls ready to go to boarding school again," she sighed.
"I'm sure you've been awfully good to me, Mrs. Harley," said Nan. "My
own dear Momsey Sherwood could have treated me no more kindly. And, of
course, she couldn't have shopped for me so well, for she has been too
much of an invalid for a long while to take any interest in the shops."
Mrs. Harley kissed her heartily. "You blessed child!" she declared.
"_You're_ no trouble to suit. Bess is the finicky person." Her daughter
began to pout. "Oh, you are, Miss!" and her mother held up an admonitory
finger and shook it at Bess. "Next time I shall buy what I think is
proper and leave you at home while I am buying. Why! these children
nowadays are more fussy about their frocks, and more insistent upon the
style of them, than their mothers. What I shall do, Elizabeth, when your
little sisters are old enough to go away to school, I--do--not--see!"
"Oh, by that time," said Bess, the modern, "I shall be 'out,' I hope,
and may have really something to say about my own clothes."
"Hear her!" ejaculated Mrs. Harley. "It will be several years yet, young
lady, before you will be 'out,' as you call it, or be allowed to spend
your father's money as lavishly as you would like to."
Nevertheless she kissed her daughter tenderly, just before the train
started, and Bess forgot for a moment that she was anything but a young
girl going a long way off from a very dear and indulgent mother. They
clung to each other for that tender, heart-breaking moment, and Nan
Sherwood's eyes overflowed in sympathy.
Nan had been through the same ordeal six months before, when her own
dear mother and father had started for Scotland, while she left Tillbury
on the very same day for her uncle Henry's backwoods home in the heart
of the Upper Michigan forest.
"Don't cry, Bess," she begged her chum when the train was out of the
station and the "clip, clip, clip-py-ti-clip" of the wheels over the
rail joints had tailed off into a staccato chatter, scarcely discernible
through the steady drumming of the great trucks under the chair-car.
"Don't cry. You know, honey, your mother isn't going to be near as far
from you as my dear Momsey is from me."
"I don't care," sniffed Bess. "If I can't see her. But oh, Nan
Sherwood!" she added sharply. "What kind of grammar was that you just
used--'_near as far_'? If Mr. Mangel, our high-school principal at
Tillbury, thought you would use such language he would never have
written to Dr. Beulah Prescott that he considered you entitled to a
rating equal with the remainder of our class."
"Don't sniff and turn up your nose, Miss, at my diction," laughed Nan.
"Your nose is bound to be red if you keep on--and your eyes, too."
"Is it? Are they?" gasped Bess.
"Is it--are they _what_?" demanded Nan, rather startled.
"Why, my nose and eyes red!"
"Well! talk about grammar!" ejaculated Nan. "I wouldn't criticise, if I
were you."
"Never mind the English language," begged Bess. "Let me look in your
mirror."
Of course, that necessitated the opening of the brand new bag. Then,
when Bess thought she had discovered a suspicious redness of the tip of
her nose, she must needs use the powder puff which was one of the
wonderful "didos" among the toilet requisites in the bag.
While Bess was so busily engaged in restoring the havoc made upon her
fresh young countenance by her recent emotion, there sounded suddenly a
heavy banging and thumping underneath the chair-car in which the girls
were riding, though not at their end of the coach.
Nervous people at the rear of the car jumped up and one or two screamed.
Almost instantly the train began to slow down, with much hissing of
steam and compressed air, and soon came to a complete stop.
Nan had jumped up, too, but not because she was frightened. None of the
trainmen came in of whom to ask about the stop and Nan went to the
front door and out into the vestibule. Even the colored porter was not
in sight.
"What is it, Nan?" Bess asked, still powdering her nose, for she had
been obliged to postpone this delicate operation until the train had
come to its bumping stop.
"I don't know," answered her chum. "I'm going forward to ask."
But hardly had she said this, when the rear door of the car opened and a
uniformed attendant said, speaking clearly:
"All passengers are requested to move into the rear coach, with all hand
baggage. This car is to be taken out of the train at once because of an
accident. All passengers will please move to the rear coach with hand
baggage. Another chair car will be put in to accommodate you at the
junction. All back to rear coach!"
He came through shouting these directions so that all in the car could
hear him. Bess jumped up, very much excited now, with:
"Oh, my gracious! Do you hear that, Nan? Do get down my coat and
suit-case. You're taller than I am."
Her chum good-naturedly did as she was requested and Bess started down
the aisle. Indeed, the two friends were about the first to leave the
chair-car by the rear door.
Just as they got into the vestibule, however, Nan noticed that her
chum's hands were empty.
"Why, Bess Harley!" she cried. "Where's my bag?"
"Your bag?" returned Bess, with wide-open eyes. "Why! haven't you
brought it?"
"Well!" But there! What was the use? Nan knew well just how heedless
Bess was. There was positively no good in getting angry with her.
"Here!" she exclaimed, thrusting the suit-case, the lunch box, and her
chum's own wrap into Bess' hands. "Get a seat if you can and hold on to
these while I go back for that bag."
"I must have left it right in the chair you sat in," said Bess, feebly.
Nan did not hear this. She had some trouble in getting back into the
car, for she was stemming the tide of outflowing passengers.
She reached the spot at last. The more moderately moving passengers were
all about her. On the floor between two of the chairs was the russet
bag.
Nan seized it quickly and turned to hasten back to her chum. The aisle
was clear for the moment and she ran.
Almost instantly a shrill voice cried out behind her:
"Here! how dare you? That's _my_ bag. Stop thief!"
Nan Sherwood cast a horrified glance over her shoulder. Yes! the voice
addressed her. An angry girl, very fussily and expensively dressed, had
started wildly down the car after Nan, and again she shrieked:
"Stop thief!"