Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp; Or, The Old Lumberman's Secret

“Oh, look there, Nan!” cried Bess Harley suddenly, as they turned into High Street from the avenue on which Tillbury's high school was situated.

“Look where?” queried Nan Sherwood promptly. “Up in the air, down on the ground or all around?” and she carried out her speech in action, finally spinning about on one foot in a manner to shock the more staid Elizabeth.

“Oh, Nan!”

“Oh, Bess!” mocked her friend.

She was a rosy-cheeked, brown-eyed girl, with fly-away hair, a blue tam-o'-shanter set jauntily upon it, and a strong, plump body that she had great difficulty in keeping still enough in school to satisfy her teachers.

“Do behave, Nan,” begged Bess. “We're on the public street.”

“How awful!” proclaimed Nan Sherwood, making big eyes at her chum. “Why folks know we're only high-school girls, so, of course, we're crazy! Otherwise we wouldn't BE high-school girls.”

“Nonsense!” cried Bess, interrupting. “Do be reasonable, Nan. And look yonder! What do you suppose that crowd is at the big gate of the Atwater Mills?”

Nan Sherwood's merry face instantly clouded. She was not at all a thoughtless girl, although she was of a sanguine, cheerful temperament.

The startled change in her face amazed Bess.

“Oh dear!” the latter cried. “What is it? Surely, there's nobody hurt in the mills? Your father-----”

“I'm afraid, Bess dear, that it means there are a great many hurt in the mills.”

“Oh, Nan! How horridly you talk,” cried Bess. “That is impossible.”

“Not hurt in the machinery, not mangled by the looms,” Nan went on to say, gravely. “But dreadfully hurt nevertheless, Bess. Father has been expecting it, I believe. Let's go and read the poster.”

“Why it is a poster, isn't it?” cried Bess. “What does it say?”

The two school girls, both neatly dressed and carrying their bags of text books, pushed into the group before the yellow quarter-sheet poster pasted on the fence.

The appearance of Nan and Bess was distinctly to their advantage when compared with that of the women and girls who made up the most of the crowd interested in the black print upon the poster.

The majority of these whispering, staring people were foreigners. All bore marks of hard work and poverty. The hands of even the girls in the group were red and cracked. It was sharp winter weather, but none wore gloves.

If they wore a head-covering at all, it was a shawl gathered at the throat by the clutch of frost-bitten fingers. There was snow on the ground; but few wore overshoes.

They crowded away from the two well-dressed high-school girls, looking at them askance. Bess Harley scarcely noticed the mill-hands' wives and daughters. She came of a family who considered these poor people little better than cattle. Nan Sherwood was so much interested in the poster that she saw nothing else. It read:

NOTICE: Two weeks from date all departments of these mills will be closed until further notice. Final payment of wages due will be made on January 15th. Over-supply of our market and the prohibitive price of cotton make this action a necessity. ATWATER MILLS COMPANY. December 28th.

“Why, dear me!” murmured Bess. “I thought it might really be something terrible. Come on, Nan. It's only a notice of a vacation. I guess most of them will be glad to rest awhile.”

“And who is going to pay for their bread and butter while the poor creatures are resting?” asked Nan seriously, as the two girls moved away from the group before the yellow poster.