Chapter IX. ON THE WAY TO THE WILDERNESS
It seemed to Nan Sherwood that night as though she never could get tosleep. Her mind and imagination worked furiously.
Momsey and Papa Sherwood had sent her to bed early. There had been notime to tell them about the accident on the ice and her part in it.Her parents had much to discuss, much to decide upon. The Scotch lawyerurged their presence before the court having jurisdiction in the matterof the late Mr. Hugh Blake's will, and that as soon as they could crossthe ocean.
Transportation from the little Illinois town, across the interveningstates to the seaport, and thence, over the winter ocean to Glasgow, andso on by rail to Edinburgh, was a journey the contemplation of which, tosuch a quiet family as the Sherwoods, was nothing less than appalling.
And there were many things to take into consideration that Nan did notwholly understand. Mrs. Sherwood would require her husband's undividedattention while she made the long and arduous journey. The sea voyagewas right in line with the physician's opinion of what was needed torestore her health; but it was a venture at best.
Had the family possessed plenty of money it is doubtful if Mr. Sherwoodwould have risked more than a coasting voyage. Conditions rising out ofthe legacy from the great uncle in Scotland spelled necessity in thiscase. Of the little sum left in bank, most of it would be required topay the fares of Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood to Edinburgh, and their modestliving there for a few weeks. There was not enough money in hand to paya third passage and the expenses of a third person in Scotland, untilthe court business should be settled.
Mr. Sherwood had already taken Mr. Bludsoe, the lawyer, into hisconfidence. He could make arrangements through him to mortgage thecottage if it became absolutely necessary. He shrank from acceptingfinancial help from Mrs. Sherwood's relatives in Memphis.
Besides, decision must be made immediately. Plans must be made almostovernight. They must start within forty-eight hours to catch a certainsteamer bound for the Scotch port of Glasgow, as Mr. Sherwood hadalready found out. And all their questions resolved finally into thisvery important one:
"WHAT SHALL WE DO ABOUT NAN?"
Nan, in her little white bed, had no idea that she was the greatestdifficulty her parents found in this present event. It never entered herbusy mind that Papa Sherwood and Momsey would dream of going to Scotlandwithout her.
"What shall we do with Nan?" Momsey said over and over again. Sherealized as well as did Mr. Sherwood that to take the child was anutter impossibility. Their financial circumstances, as well as otherconsiderations would not allow it.
Yet, what should they do with her, with whom to trust her during theiruncertain absence on the other side? No answer that came to their mindsseemed the right one. They rose that wintry morning without having thismost important of all questions decided.
This was Sunday and Mrs. Joyce always came over for breakfast; for shelived alone and never had any too much to eat, Nan was sure. As for theold woman's eating with the family, that was a fiction she kept upfor appearance's sake, perhaps, or to salve her own claims to formergentility. She always set a place for herself at the family table in thedining room and then was too busy to eat with them, taking her own mealin the kitchen.
Therefore it was she only who heard the commanding rap at the kitchendoor in the midst of the leisurely meal, and answered it.
Just then Nan had dropped her knife and fork and was staring fromMomsey's pitying face to Papa Sherwood's grave one, as she cried, in awhisper:
"Not me? Oh, my dears! You're never going without me, all that longjourney? What, whatever shall I do without you both?"
"Don't, honey! Don't say it that way!" begged Momsey, putting herhandkerchief to her eyes.
"If it was not quite impossible, do you think for a moment, daughter,that we would contemplate leaving you at home?" queried Mr. Sherwood,his own voice trembling.
"It, it seems impossible!" gasped Nan, "just as though it couldn't be.I won't know what to do without you, my dears. And what will you dowithout me?"
That seemed to be unanswerable, and it quite broke Momsey down. Shesobbed openly into her handkerchief.
"Who's going to be her little maid?" demanded Nan, of her father. "Who'sgoing to 'do' her beautiful hair? Who's going to wait on her when shehas her dreadful headaches? And who's going to play 'massagist' like me?I want to know who can do all those things for Momsey if you take heraway from me, Papa Sherwood?" and she ended quite stormily.
"My dear child!" Mr. Sherwood said urgently. "I want you to listen tome. Our situation is such that we cannot possibly take you with us.That is final. It is useless for us to discuss the point, for there isnothing to be gained by discussing it from now till Doomsday."
Nan gulped down a sob and looked at him with dry eyes. Papa Sherwood hadnever seemed so stern before, and yet his own eyes were moist. She beganto see that this decision was very hard upon her parents, too.
"Now do you understand," he asked gently, "that we cannot take ourlittle daughter with us, but that we are much worried by the fact, andwe do not know what to do with her while we are gone?"
"You, you might as well put me in an orphan asylum," choked Nan. "I'llbe an orphan till you get back."
"Oh, honey!" cried her mother.
"There now!" said Nan, jumping up quickly and going around the table toher mother's side. "You poor dear! I won't say anything more to hurt andtrouble you. I'm a selfish thing, that's what I am."
Momsey wound her arms about her. Papa Sherwood still looked grave. "Weget no nearer to the proper solution of the difficulty," he said. "Ofcourse, Nancy, the orphan asylum is out of the question."
"I'll stay here, of course," Nan said, with some difficulty keeping hervoice from quavering.
"Not alone in the house, honey," Momsey said quickly.
"With Mrs. Joyce?" suggested Nan tentatively.
"No," Mr. Sherwood said. "She is not the person to be trusted with you."
"There's Mrs. Grimes' boarding house around the corner?" suggested Nan.
Momsey shuddered. "Never! Never! My little girl in a boarding house. Oh,Papa Sherwood! We must find somebody to care for her while we are away,who loves Nan."
And it was just here that a surprisingly gruff voice took up the matterand decided it in a moment.
"That's me," said the voice, with conviction. "She's just the sort oflittle girl I cotton to, sister Jessie. And Kate'll be fairly crazyabout her. If you're going anywhere for a long spell, just let me takeher up to Pine Camp. We have no little girls up there, never had any.But I bet we know how to treat 'em."
"Hen!" shouted Mr. Sherwood, stumbling up from the table, and puttingout both hands to the big man whom Mrs. Joyce had ushered in from thekitchen so unexpectedly.
"Henry Sherwood!" gasped Momsey, half rising herself in her surprise anddelight.
"Why!" cried Nan, "it's the bear-man!" for Mr. Henry Sherwood wore thegreat fur coat and cap that he had worn the evening before when he hadcome to Nan's aid in rescuing the boy from Norway Pond.
Afterward Nan confessed, naively, that she ought to have known he washer Uncle Henry. Nobody, she was quite sure, could be so big and brawnyas the lumberman from Michigan.
"She's the girl for me," proclaimed Uncle Henry admiringly. "Smart as awhip and as bold as a catamount. Hasn't she told you what she did lastnight? Sho! Of course not. She don't go 'round blowing about her deedsof valor, I bet!" and the big man went off into a gale of laughter thatseemed to shake the little cottage.
Papa Sherwood and Momsey had to learn all the particulars then, and bothglowed with pride over their little daughter's action. Gradually, afternumerous personal questions were asked and answered on both sides, theconversation came around to the difficulty the little family was in, andthe cause of it.
Henry Sherwood listened to the story of the Scotch legacy with wide-openeyes, marveling greatly. The possibility of his brother's wife becomingwealthy amazed and delighted his simple mind. The fact that they had totake the lon
g journey to Scotland to obtain the money troubled him butlittle. Although he had never traveled far himself, save to Chicago fromthe Michigan woods, Mr. Henry Sherwood had lived in the open so muchthat distances did not appall him.
"Sure you'll go," he proclaimed, reaching down into a very deep pocketand dragging to light a long leather pouch, with a draw-string ofhome-cured deer skin. "And if you are short, Bob, we'll go down intothis poke and see what there is left.
"I came down to Chicago to see about a piece of timber that's owned bysome sharps on Jackson Street. I didn't know but I might get to cut thattimber. I've run it careless-like, and I know pretty near what there isin it. So I said to Kate:
"'I'll see Bob and his wife, and the little nipper-----"
"Goodness!" ejaculated Nan, under her breath.
Uncle Henry's eyes twinkled and the many wrinkles about them screwedup into hard knots. "Beg pardon!" he exclaimed, for his ears were verysharp. "This young lady, I should have said. Anyhow, I told Kate I'd seeyou all and find out what you were doing.
"Depending on mills and such for employment isn't any very safe way tolive, I think. Out in the woods you are as free as air, and there aren'tso many bosses, and you don't have to think much about 'the market' and'supply and demand,' and all that."
"Just the same," said Mr. Robert Sherwood, his own eyes twinkling, "youare in some trouble right now, I believe, Hen?"
"Sho! You've got me there," boomed his brother with a great laugh."But there aren't many reptiles like old Ged Raffer. And we can thanka merciful Creator for that. I expect there are just a few miserly oldhunks like Ged as horrible examples to the rest of us."
"What is the nature of your trouble with this old fellow?" asked Mr.Robert Sherwood.
"We've got hold on adjoining options. I had my lines run by one of thebest surveyors in the Peninsula of Michigan. But he up and died. Gedclaims I ran over on his tract about a mile. He got to court first, gotan injunction, and tied me all up in a hard legal knot until the statesurveyors can go over both pieces of timber. The land knows when that'llbe! Those state surveyors take a week of frog Sundays to do a job.
"I can't cut a stick on my whole piece 'cause Ged claims he'll have aright to replevin an equal number of sticks cut, if the surveyors backup his contention. Nasty mess. The original line was run years and yearsago, and they're not many alive today in the Big woods that know therights of it.
"I expect," added Uncle Henry, shaking his bushy head, "that old TobyVanderwiller knows the rights of that line business; but he won't tell.Gedney Raffer's got a strangle hold on Toby and his little swamp farm,and Toby doesn't dare say his soul's his own.
"Well!" continued the lumberman, with another of his big laughs. "Thishas nothing to do with your stew, Bob. I didn't want to come to thehouse last night and surprise you; so I stayed at the hotel. And all thetime I was thinking of this little nip, Beg pardon! This young lady, andhow smart and plucky she was.
"And lo and behold," pursued Uncle Henry, "she turns out to be my ownniece. I'm going to take her back with me to Pine Camp. Kate's got tosee and know her. The boys will be tickled out of their boots to have agirl like her around. That's our one lack at Pine Camp. There never wasa girl in the family.
"Seems that this was just foreordained. You and Jessie have got to go'way off, over the water; can't leave this plucky girl alone. Her olduncle and aunt are the proper folks to take care of her. What do you sayyourself, young lady?"
Nan had liked the big man from the very beginning. She was a sensiblechild, too. She saw that she must settle this matter herself, for it wastoo hard a question for either Momsey or Papa Sherwood to decide.She gained control of herself now; but nobody will ever know how muchcourage it took for her to say, promptly:
"Of course I will go home with you, Uncle Henry. It will be fun, Ithink, to go into the woods in the winter. And, and I can come rightback as soon as Momsey and Papa Sherwood return from Scotland."
So it was settled, just like that. The rush in which both parties gotunder way on Monday made Nan's head whirl. Momsey was to buy a fewnecessary things in New York before she boarded the steamer. Nan had aplentiful supply of warm winter clothing, and she took a trunkful.
Mrs. Joyce was left to take a peep at the little, locked cottage onAmity Street, now and then. Nan could say "Goodbye" only very hastilyto Bess Harley and her other school friends. Her school had to be brokenoff at a bad time in the year, but there was the prospect of a change inNan's method of education the next fall.
Momsey and Papa Sherwood took the train east an hour before Nan andUncle Henry boarded that for Chicago. All went with a rush and clatter,and Nan found herself at last rumbling out of Tillbury, on her way tothe northern wilderness, while a thin drive of fine snowflakes tapped onthe car windows.
Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp; Or, The Old Lumberman's Secret Page 9
