Chapter IV. SWEEPING CLEAN
"My goodness me!" ejaculated Bess Harley. "Talk about the 'leaden wingsof Time.' Why! Time sweeps by us on electrically-driven, ball-bearingpinions. Here's another week gone, Nan, and tomorrow's Saturday."
"Yes," Nan agreed. "Time flies all too quickly, for me, anyway. Themills have been closed a week now."
"Oh, dear! That's all I hear," complained Bess. "Those tiresome oldmills. Our Maggie's sister was crying in the kitchen last night becauseher Mike couldn't get a job now the mills were closed, and was drinkingup all the money they had saved. That's what the mill-hands do; theirmoney goes to the saloon-keepers!"
"The proportion of their income spent by the laboring class foralcoholic beverages is smaller by considerable than that spent bythe well-to-do for similar poison!" quoted Nan decisively. "Mike isdesperate, I suppose, poor fellow!"
"My goodness me!" cried Bess again. "You are most exasperating, NanSherwood. Mike's case has nothing to do with political Economy, and I dowish you'd drop that study out of school----"
"I have!" gasped Nan, for just then her books slipped from her strap;"and history, rhetoric, and philosophical readings along with it," andshe proceeded cheerfully to pick up the several books mentioned.
"You can't mean," Bess said, still severely, "that you won't go toLakeview with me, Nan?"
"I wish you wouldn't keep saying that, Bess," Nan Sherwood cried. "Is itmy fault? Don't you suppose I'd love to, if I could? We have no money.Father is out of work. There is no prospect of other work for him inTillbury, he says, and," Nan continued desperately, "how do you supposeI can go to a fancy boarding school under these circumstances?"
"Why-----"
For once Elizabeth was momentarily silenced. Suddenly her facebrightened. "I tell you!" she exclaimed. "I'll speak to my father aboutit. He can fix it so that you will be able to go to the Hall with me, Iknow."
"I'd like to see myself an object of charity!" Nan cried, with heat."I, guess, not! What I can't earn, or my father can't give me, I'll gowithout, Bess. That's all there is to that!"
Bess stared at her with quivering lips. "You can't be so mean, Nan," shefaltered.
"I'm not mean!" denied the other.
"I'd like to know what you call it? Why, father'd never miss yourtuition money in the world. And I know he'd pay your way if I asked himand told him how bad I felt about your not going."
"You're a dear, Bess!" declared Nan, impulsively hugging her friendagain. "But you mustn't ask him, honey. It wouldn't be right, and Icouldn't accept.
"Don't you understand, honey, that I have some pride in the matter?So have Papa Sherwood and Momsey. What they can't do for me their ownselves I wouldn't want anybody to do."
"Why, that sounds awfully silly to me, Nan!" said Bess. "Why not takeall you can get in this world? I'm sure I should."
"You don't know what you are saying," Nan returned seriously. "And,then, you are not poor, so you can afford to say it, and even do it."
"Poor! I'm getting to hate that word," cried Bess stormily. "It neverbothered me before, much. We're not poor and none of our friends werepoor. Not until those old mills closed. And now it seems all I hear isabout folks being POOR. I hate it!"
"I guess," said Nan ruefully, "you don't hate it half as much as thoseof us who have to suffer it."
"I'm just going to find some way of getting you to Lakeview Hall, mydear," Bess rejoined gloomily. "Why! I won't want to go myself if youdon't go, Nan."
Her friend thought she would better not tell Bess just then that theprospect was that she, with her father and mother, would have to leaveTillbury long before the autumn. Mr. Sherwood was trying to obtaina situation in Chicago, in a machine shop. He had no hope of gettinganother foreman's position.
Nothing had been heard from Mr. Adair MacKenzie, of Memphis. Mrs.Sherwood wanted to write again; but her husband begged her not to. Hehad a proper pride. It looked to him as though his wife's cousin did notcare to be troubled by the necessities of his relations.
"We'll get along!" was Mr. Sherwood's repeated and cheerful statement."Never say die! Hope is our anchor! Fate shall not balk us! And all theother copy-book maxims."
But it was Mrs. Sherwood and Nan who managed to save and scrimp andbe frugal in many infinitesimal ways, thus making their savings lastmarvelously.
Nan gave up her entire Saturdays to household tasks. She insisted onthat, and urged the curtailment of the weekly expense by having Mrs.Joyce come in to help but one day.
"I can iron, Momsey, and if I can't do it very well at first, I canlearn," declared the plucky girl. "And, of course, I can sweep. That'sgood for me. Our physical instructor says so. Instead of going to thegym on Saturday, I'll put in calisthenics and acrobatic stunts with abroom and duster."
She was thorough, too. She could not have been her father's daughterwithout having that virtue. There was no "lick and a promise" in NanSherwood's housekeeping. She did not sweep the dust under the bureau,or behind the door, or forget to wipe the rounds of the chairs and thebaseboard all around the rooms.
Papa Sherwood, coughing in the lower hall as the dust descended fromabove, declared she went through the cottage like a whirlwind. It wasnot as bad as that, but her vigorous young arms wielded the broom withconsiderable skill.
One Saturday, with every other room swept but the front hall, she closedthe doors into that, and set wide open the outer door. There was moresnow on the ground now; but the porch was cleaned and the path to thefront gate neatly dug and swept. The tinkle of sleigh bells and thelaughter of a crowd of her school friends swept by the corner of AmityStreet. Nan ran out upon the porch and waved her duster at them.
There she stood, smiling out upon her little world for a minute. Shemight not see Amity Street, and the old neighbors, many weeks longer. Ahalf-promise of work from the Chicago machine shop boss had reached Mr.Sherwood that morning by post. It seemed the only opening, and itmeant that they would have to give up the "dwelling in amity" and go tocrowded Chicago to live. For Momsey was determined that Papa Sherwoodshould not go without her.
Nan came back into the hall and began to wield the broom again. Shecould not leave the door open too long, for it was cold outside and thewinter chill would get into the house. They had to keep all the rooms atan even temperature on account of Momsey's health.
But she swept vigorously, moving each piece of furniture, and throwingthe rugs out upon the porch for a special sweeping there. The rough matat the door was a heavy one. As Nan stooped to pick it up and toss itafter the other small rugs, she saw the corner of a yellow envelopesticking from under the edge of the hall carpet.
"Wonder what that is?" murmured Nan. "Somebody has thrust a circular,or advertisement, under our door, and it's gone under the carpet. Yes!There's a tack out there."
She seized the corner of the envelope with thumb and finger. She drew itout. Its length surprised her. It was a long, official looking envelope,not bulky but most important looking. In the upper left-hand corner wasprinted:
ADAIR MACKENZIE & CO. STOCKS AND BONDS MEMPHIS
It was properly stamped and addressed to her mother. By the postmark onit Nan knew it must have been tucked under the door by the postman morethan a week before. Somehow he had failed to ring their bell when heleft the letter. The missing tack in the edge of the hall carpet hadallowed the document to slide out of sight, and it might have beenhidden for weeks longer had chance not shown the small corner ofstraw-colored paper to Nan.
She felt breathless. Her knees trembled. Somehow, Nan just KNEW that theletter from her mother's cousin must be of enormous importance. Sheset her broom in the corner and closed the door. It was fated that sheshould do no more sweeping that day.
Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp; Or, The Old Lumberman's Secret Page 4
