Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp | Page 9

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