Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp Part 10

"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 thank a merciful Creator for that. I expect there are just a few miserly old hunks 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 the best surveyors in the Peninsula of Michigan. But he up and died. Ged claims I ran over on his tract about a mile. He got to court first, got an injunction, and tied me all up in a hard legal knot until the state surveyors can go over both pieces of timber. The land knows when that'll be! 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 a right to replevin an equal number of sticks cut, if the surveyors back up his contention. Nasty mess. The original line was run years and years ago, and they're not many alive today in the Big woods that know the rights of it.

"I expect," added Uncle Henry, shaking his bushy head, "that old Toby Vanderwiller 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. "This has nothing to do with your stew, Bob. I didn't want to come to the house last night and surprise you; so I stayed at the hotel. And all the time I was thinking of this little nip, Beg pardon! This young lady, and how smart and plucky she was.

"And lo and behold," pursued Uncle Henry, "she turns out to be my own niece. I'm going to take her back with me to Pine Camp. Kate's got to see and know her. The boys will be tickled out of their boots to have a girl like her around. That's our one lack at Pine Camp. There never was a 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 old uncle and aunt are the proper folks to take care of her. What do you say yourself, young lady?"

Nan had liked the big man from the very beginning. She was a sensible child, too. She saw that she must settle this matter herself, for it was too hard a question for either Momsey or Papa Sherwood to decide.

She gained control of herself now; but n.o.body will ever know how much courage it took for her to say, promptly:

"Of course I will go home with you, Uncle Henry. It will be fun, I think, to go into the woods in the winter. And, and I can come right back as soon as Momsey and Papa Sherwood return from Scotland."

So it was settled, just like that. The rush in which both parties got under way on Monday made Nan's head whirl. Momsey was to buy a few necessary things in New York before she boarded the steamer. Nan had a plentiful supply of warm winter clothing, and she took a trunkful.

Mrs. Joyce was left to take a peep at the little, locked cottage on Amity Street, now and then. Nan could say "Goodbye" only very hastily to Bess Harley and her other school friends. Her school had to be broken off at a bad time in the year, but there was the prospect of a change in Nan's method of education the next fall.

Momsey and Papa Sherwood took the train east an hour before Nan and Uncle 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 to the northern wilderness, while a thin drive of fine snowflakes tapped on the car windows.

Chapter X. GEDNEY RAFFER

It was fortunate for Nan Sherwood that on the day of parting with her parents she had so much to do, and that there was so much to see, and so many new things of which to think.

She had never traveled to Chicago before, nor far from Tillbury at all.

Even the chair car was new to the girl's experience and she found it vastly entertaining to sit at a broad window with her uncle in the opposite chair, gazing out upon the snowy landscape as the train hurried over the prairie.

She had a certain feeling that her Uncle Henry was an anomaly in the chair car. His huge bearskin coat and the rough clothing under it; his felt boots, with rubber soles and feet; the fact that he wore no linen and only a string tie under the collar of his flannel shirt; his great bronzed hands and blunted fingers with their broken nails, all these things set him apart from the other men who rode in the car.

Papa Sherwood paid much attention to the niceties of dress, despite the fact that his work at the At.w.a.ter Mills had called for overalls and, frequently, oily hands. Uncle Henry evidently knew little about stiff collars and laundered cuffs, or cravats, smart boots, bosomed shirts, or other dainty wear for men. He was quite innocent of giving any offence to the eye, however. Lying back in the comfortable chair with his coat off and his great lumberman's boots crossed, he laughed at anything Nan said that chanced to be the least bit amusing, until the gas-globes rang again.

It seemed to Nan as though there never was such a huge man before. She doubted if Goliath could have looked so big to young David, when the shepherd boy went out with his sling to meet the giant. Uncle Henry was six feet, four inches in height and broad in proportion. The chair creaked under his weight when he moved. Other people in the car gazed on the quite unconscious giant as wonderingly as did Nan herself.

"Uncle Henry," she asked him once, "are all the men in the Big Woods as tall as you are?"

"Goodness me! No, child," he chuckled. "But the woods don't breed many runts, that's a fact. There's some bigger than I. Long Sam Dorgan is near seven feet he isn't quite sure, for he's so ticklish that you can't ever measure him," and Uncle Henry's chuckle burst into a full-fledged laugh. "He's just as graceful as a length of shingle lathing, too. And freckles and liver spots on his hands and face, well, he certain sure is a handsome creature.

"He went to town once and stayed over night. Wasn't any bed long enough at the hotel, and Sam had got considerably under the weather, anyhow, from fooling with hard cider. So he wasn't particular about where he bedded down, and they put him to sleep in the horse trough."

"The horse trough!" gasped Nan.

"Yes. It was pretty dry when Sam went to bed; but right early in the morning a sleepy hostler stumbled out to the trough and began to pump water into it for the cattle. Maybe Long Sam needed a bath, but not just that way. He rose up with a yell like a Choctaw Indian. Said he was just dreaming of going through the Sault Ste. Marie in a barrel, and he reckoned the barrel burst open."

Nan was much amused by this story, as she was by others that the old lumberman related. He was full of dry sayings and his speech had many queer twists to it. His bluff, honest way delighted the girl, although he was so different from Papa Sherwood. As Momsey had said, Uncle Henry's body had to be big to contain his heart. One can excuse much that is rough in a character so lovable as that of Uncle Henry's.

The snow increased as the train sped on and the darkness gradually thickened. Uncle Henry took his niece into the dining car where they had supper, with a black man with shiny eyes and very white teeth, who seemed always on the broad grin, to wait upon them. Nan made a mental note to write Bess Harley all about the meal and the service, for Bess was always interested in anything that seemed "aristocratic," and to the unsophisticated girl from Tillbury the style of the dining car seemed really luxurious.

When the train rolled into the Chicago station it was not yet late; but it seemed to Nan as though they had ridden miles and miles, through lighted streets hedged on either side with brick houses. The snow was still falling, but it looked sooty and gray here in the city. Nan began to feel some depression, and to remember more keenly that Momsey and Papa Sherwood were flying easterly just as fast as an express train could take them.

It was cold, too. A keen, penetrating wind seemed to search through the streets. Uncle Henry said it came from the lake. He beckoned to a taxicab driver, and Nan's trunk was found and strapped upon the roof.

Then off they went to the hotel where Uncle Henry always stopped when he came to Chicago, and where his own bag was checked.

Looking through the cab windows, the girl began to take an immediate interest in life again. So many people, despite the storm! So many vehicles tangled up at the corners and waiting for the big policemen to let them by in front of the clanging cars! Bustle, hurry, noise, confusion!

"Some different from your Tillbury," drawled Uncle Henry. "And just as different from Pine Camp as chalk is from cheese."

"But so interesting!" breathed Nan, with a sigh. "Doesn't it ever get to be bedtime for children in the city?"

"Not for those kids," grumbled Uncle Henry. "Poor creatures. They sell papers, or flowers, or matches, or what-not, all evening long. And stores keep open, and hotel bars, and drug shops, besides theatres and the like. There's a big motion picture place! I went there once. It beats any show that ever came to Hobart Forks, now I tell you."

"Oh, we have motion picture shows at Tillbury. We have had them in the school hall, too," said Nan complacently. "But, of course, I'd like to see all the people and the lights, and so forth. It looks very interesting in the city. But the snow is dirty, Uncle Henry."

"Yes. And most everything else is dirty when you get into these brick and mortar tunnels. That's what I call the streets. The air even isn't clean," went on the lumberman. "Give me the woods, with a fresh wind blowing, and the world looks good to me," then his voice and face fell, as he added, "excepting that snake-in-the-gra.s.s, Ged Raffer."

"That man must make you a lot of trouble, Uncle Henry," said Nan sympathetically.

"He does," growled the lumberman. "He's a miserable, fox-faced scoundrel, and I've no more use for him than I have for an egg-sucking dog. That's the way I feel about it."

They reached the hotel just then, and Uncle Henry's flare of pa.s.sion was quenched. The hostelry he patronized was not a new hotel; but it was a very good one, and Nan's heart beat high as she followed the porter inside, with Uncle Henry directing the taxicab driver and a second porter how to dispose of the trunk for the night.

Nan had her bag in which were her night clothes, toilet articles, and other necessities. The porter carried this for her and seated her on a comfortable lounge at one side while Uncle Henry arranged about the rooms.

To do honor to his pretty niece the lumberman engaged much better quarters than he would have chosen for himself. When they went up to the rooms Nan found a pretty little bath opening out of hers, and the maid came and asked her if she could be of any help. The girl began to feel quite "grown up." It was all very wonderful, and she loved Uncle Henry for making things so pleasant for her.

She had to run to his door and tell him this before she undressed. He had pulled off his boots and was tramping up and down the carpeted floor in his thick woolen socks, humming to himself.

"Taking a const.i.tutional, Nan," he declared. "Haven't had any exercise for this big body of mine all day. Sitting in that car has made me as cramped as a bear just crawling out of his den in the spring."

He did not tell her that had he been alone he would have gone out and tramped the snowy streets for half the night. But he would not leave her alone in the hotel. "No, sir," said Uncle Henry. "Robert would never forgive me if anything happened to his honey-bird. And fire, or something, might break out here while I was gone."

He said nothing like this to Nan, however, but kissed her good night and told her she should always bid him good night in just that way as long as she was at Pine Camp.

"For Kate and I have never had a little girl," said the big lumberman, "and boys get over the kissing stage mighty early, I find. Kate and I always did hanker for a girl."

"If you owned a really, truly daughter of your own, Uncle Henry, I believe you'd spoil her to death!" cried Nan, the next morning, when she came out of the fur shop to which he had taken her.

He had insisted that she was not dressed warmly enough for the woods. "We see forty and forty-five below up there, sometimes," he said. "You think this raw wind is cold; it is nothing to a black frost in the Big Woods.

Trees burst as if there were dynamite in 'em. You've never seen the like.