Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp Part 32

Under this threat Margaret became amenable. She puckered up her lips and stretched her arms out toward Indian Pete. The man stumbled back and fell on his knees beside the two girls. Nan heard the hoa.r.s.e sob in his throat as he took little Margaret in his arms.

"Bless you! Bless you!" he murmured, receiving the kiss right upon his scarred cheek. But Nan saw that Margaret's eyes were tightly closed as she delivered the caress, per order!

The next moment the man with the scarred face had slipped away and disappeared in the forest. They saw him no more.

However, just as soon as the catalog house could send it, Margaret received a beautiful, pink-cheeked, and flaxen-haired Doll, not as fine as Beulah, but beautiful enough to delight any reasonable child.

Nan had won back Margaret's confidence and affection.

Meanwhile the hot summer was fast pa.s.sing. Nan heard from her chum, Bess Harley, with commendable regularity; and no time did Bess write without many references to Lakeview Hall.

Nan, advised by her former teacher in Tillbury, had brought her books to Pine Camp, and had studied faithfully along the lines of the high school work. She was sure she could pa.s.s quite as good an entrance examination for Lakeview Hall as Bess could.

And at last good news came from Scotland:

"I am not quite ready to bring Momsey home," Papa Sherwood wrote. "But the matter of her fortune is at least partially settled. The claims of the other relatives have been disallowed. Mr. Andrew Blake is prepared to turn over to your Momsey a part of her wonderful fortune. The rest will come later. She will tell you all about it herself.

"What I wish to say to you particularly in this letter," pursued Mr.

Sherwood, "is, that arrangements have been made for you to attend Lakeview Hall this coming semester. You will meet your friend, Elizabeth Harley, in Chicago, and will go with her to the school. I am writing by this mail to the princ.i.p.al of the Hall. Mr. Harley has made all other necessary arrangements for you."

"Oh!" cried Nan, clasping her hands. "It's too good to be true! It can't be possible! I just know I'll wake up in a minute and find all this an exciting dream, and that's all!"

But Nan was wrong on that point, as the reader will see if her further adventures are followed in the next volume of the series, ent.i.tled, "Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall, or, The Mystery of the Haunted Boathouse."

While Nan was still intensely excited over this letter from Scotland, Toby Vanderwiller drove up to the Sherwood house behind his broken-kneed pony. This was the first time any of the Sherwoods had seen him since the day of the big storm and the fire in the sawdust.

Chapter x.x.x. OFF FOR LAKEVIEW HALL

Nan ran out immediately to speak to the old lumberman; but Toby was calling for Uncle Henry:

"Hey, Hen! Hen Sherwood! Come out yere," he cried.

Uncle Henry halloaed from the stables, and came striding at the call.

Nan reached the old rattletrap wagon first.

"Oh, Mr. Vanderwiller!" she said. "I am glad to see you! And how is your wife and Corson?"

He looked down at her reflectively, and for a moment did not say a word.

Then he swallowed something and said, jerkily:

"An' you're the one that done it all, Sissy! The ol' woman an' the boy air as chipper as bluejays. An' they air a honin' for a sight on you."

"Yes. I haven't been over lately. But that man from Chicago came, didn't he?"

"I sh'd say 'yes'! He come," said Toby, in awe. "An' what d'ye s'pose?

He done buyed a heap of Corson's spec'mens an' paid him more'n a hundred dollars for 'em. And that ain't countin' that there dead-head b.u.t.terfly ye made sech a time about.

"I reckoned," pursued Toby, "that you was right crazy about that there bug. One bug's as bad as another to my way of thinkin'. But it seems that Chicago feller thinked dif'rent."

"It really was one of the very rare death's-head moths?" cried Nan, delighted.

"So he said. And he was willin' ter back up his belief with cold cash,"

declared Toby, smiting his leg for emphasis. "He paid us harnsome for it; and he said he'd take a lot more spec'mens if--

"Har! Here ye be, Hen," he added, breaking off to greet Nan's uncle. "I got suthin' to say to you. I kin say it now, for I ain't beholden ter n.o.body. With what me and the ol' woman had scrimped and saved, an' what this feller from Chicago give Corson, I done paid off my debt to ol' Ged Raffer, an' the little farm's free and clear."

"I'm glad to hear it, Tobe," Uncle Henry declared, shaking hands with the old lumberman again. "I certain sure am glad to hear it! I'm pleased that you shouldn't have that worry on your mind any longer."

"And it has been a worry," said Old Toby, shaking his head. "More'n you think for. Ye see, it snarled me all up so's I warn't my own master."

"I see."

"Ye see, Ged was allus after me to go inter court an' back up his claim ag'in you on that Perkins Tract."

"I see," said Henry Sherwood again, nodding.

"On the other hand, you wanted me, if I knowed which was right, to witness, too. If I'd witnessed for Ged, ev'rybody wuld ha' thought I done it because he had a mortgage on the farm."

"I s'pose so," admitted Uncle Henry.

"Or, if I helped you, they'd ha' thought you'd bribed me--mebbe helped me git square with Ged."

"I couldn't. Too poor just now," said Uncle Henry, grimly. "But I'd the mind for it, Toby."

"Well, there ye be. Whichever way the cat jumped, I'd lost the respect of the community," said the old lumberman. "But now I am independent, I don't give a dern!"

Mr. Sherwood looked at him expectantly. Toby's "wizzled" face shone.

"I got a debt owin' to that leetle gal you got here, and somethin' to pay off to Tommy, too. But money won't do it, ef I had money. I am goin'

to tell what I know about that boundary, though, Hen, and it will do YOU good! I can find another old feller, livin' down Pale Lick way, that can corroborate my evidence.

"You can git that injunction vacated at once, Hen, if you want, and put your axe-men right back into the Perkins Tract to work. That's what I come 'round to tell ye."

Aunt Kate was moved to tears, an unusual expression of emotion on her part. Being of pioneer stock, and having suffered much in the past, Nan's aunt was not easily moved. Uncle Henry was delighted. It was a great day for the Sherwoods.

It was another great day when, a week later, the roan ponies were brought to the door and Nan's trunk was strapped upon the back of the buckboard. Uncle Henry was to drive her to the train; but she would travel alone to Chicago to meet her chum, Bess Harley.

"And go to Lakeview Hall! I never did really expect I'd get there," Nan sighed, as she clung to Aunt Kate's neck. "It almost makes me forget that Momsey and Papa Sherwood are not at home yet.

"But, my dear!" she added, "if such a thing could be, you and Uncle Henry have taken the place of my own dear parents all these months I have been at Pine Camp. I've had a dee-lightful time. I'll never forget you all. I love you, love you, love you."

The roan ponies started on the jump. The boys cheered her from the corner of the house, having bashfully remained in the background. Even Margaret Llewellen and her impish brother, Bob, appeared and shrilly bade her goodbye.

Nan was off for school, and wonderful adventures lay before her!