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Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp

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<h2> Chapter XXIV. THE SMOKING TREE </h2> Nan awoke to a new day with the feeling that the loss of her treasured doll must have been a bad dream. But it was not. Another search of her room and the closet assured her that it was a horrid reality. She might have lost many of her personal possessions without a pang; but not Beautiful Beulah. Nan could not tell her aunt or the rest of the family just how she felt about it. She was sure they would not understand. The doll had reminded her continually of her home life. Although the stay of her parents in Scotland was much more extended than they or Nan had expected, the doll was a link binding the girl to her old home life which she missed so much. Her uncle and aunt had tried to make her happy here at Pine Camp. As far as they could do so they had supplied the love and care of Momsey and Papa Sherwood. But Nan was actually ill for her old home and her old home associations. On this morning, by herself in her bedroom, she cried bitterly before she appeared before the family. "I have no right to make them feel miserable just because my heart, is, breaking," she sobbed aloud. "I won't let them see how bad I feel. But if I don't find Beulah, I just know I shall die!" Could she have run to Momsey for comfort it would have helped, Oh, how much! "I am a silly," Nan told herself at last, warmly. "But I cannot help it. Oh, dear! Where can Beulah have gone?" She bathed her eyes well in the cold spring water brought by Tom that she always found in the jug outside her door in the morning, and removed such traces of tears as she could; and nobody noticed when she went out to breakfast that her eyelids were puffy and her nose a bit red. The moment Rafe caught sight of her he began to squall, supposedly like an infant, crying: "Ma-ma! Ma-ma! Tum an' take Too-tums. Waw! Waw! Waw!" After all her hurt pride and sorrow, Nan would have called up a laugh at this. But Tom, who was drinking at the water bucket, wheeled with the full dipper and threw the contents into Rafe's face. That broke off the teasing cousin's voice for a moment; but Rafe came up, sputtering and mad. "Say! You big oaf!" he shouted. "What you trying to do?" "Trying to be funny," said Tom, sharply. "And you set me the example." "Now, boys!" begged Aunt Kate. "Don't quarrel." "And, dear me, boys," gasped Nan, "please don't squabble about me." "That big lummox!" continued Rafe, still angry. "Because dad backs him up and says he ought to lick me, he does this. I'm going to defend myself. If he does a thing like that again, I'll fix him." Tom laughed in his slow way and lumbered out. Uncle Henry did not hear this, and Nan was worried. She thought Aunt Kate was inclined to side with her youngest boy. Rafe would always be "the baby" to Aunt Kate. At any rate Nan was very sorry the quarrel had arisen over her. And she was careful to say nothing to fan further the flame of anger between her cousins. Nor did she say anything more about the lost doll. So the family had no idea how heartsore and troubled the girl really was over the mystery. It hurt her the more because she could talk to nobody about Beulah. There was not a soul in whom she could confide. Had Bess Harley been here at Pine Camp Nan felt that she could not really expect sympathy from her chum at this time; for Bess considered herself quite grown up and her own dolls were relegated to the younger members of her family. Nan could write to her chum, however, and did. She could write to Momsey, and did that, too; not forgetting to tell her absent parents about old Toby Vanderwiller, and his wife and his grandson, and of their dilemma. If only Momsey's great fortune came true, Nan was sure that Gedney Raffer would be paid off and Toby would no longer have the threat of dispossession held over him. Nan Sherwood wrote, too, to Mr. Mangel, the principal of the Tillbury High School, and told him about the collection the crippled grandson of the old lumberman had made, mentioning those specimens which had impressed her most. She had some hope that the strange moth might be very valuable. Nan was so busy writing letters, and helping Aunt Kate preserve some early summer fruit, that she did not go far from the house during the next few days, and so did not see even Margaret Llewellen. The other girl friends she had made at Pine Camp lived too far away for her to visit them often or have them come to call on her. A long letter from Papa Sherwood about this time served to take Nan's mind off the mystery, in part, at least. It was a nice letter and most joyfully received by the girl; but to her despair it gave promise of no very quick return of her parents from Scotland: "Those relatives of your mother's whom we have met here, Mr. Andrew Blake's family, for instance, have treated us most kindly. They are, themselves, all well-to-do, and gentlefolk as well. The disposal by Old Hughie Blake, as he was known hereabout, of his estate makes no difference to the other Blakes living near Emberon," wrote Mr. Sherwood. "It is some kin at a distance, children of a half sister of Old Hughie, who have made a claim against the estate. Mr. Andrew Blake, who is well versed in the Scotch law, assures us these distant relatives have not the shadow of a chance of winning their suit. He is so sure of this that he has kindly offered to advance certain sums to your mother to tide us over until the case is settled. "I am sending some money to your Uncle Henry for your use, if any emergency should arise. You must not look for our return, my dear Nancy, too soon. Momsey's health is so much improved by the sea voyage and the wonderfully invigorating air here, that I should be loath to bring her home at once, even if the matter of the legacy were settled. By the way, the sum she will finally receive from Mr. Hugh Blake's estate will be quite as much as the first letter from the lawyer led us to expect. Some of your dearest wishes, my dear, may be realized in time." "Oh! I can go to Lakeview Hall with Bess, after all!" cried Nan, aloud, at this point. Indeed, that possibility quite filled the girl's mind for a while. Nothing else in Papa Sherwood's letter, aside from the good news of Momsey's improved health, so pleased her as this thought. She hastened to write a long letter to Bess Harley, with Lakeview Hall as the text. Summer seemed to stride out of the forest now, full panoplied. After the frost and snow of her early days at Pine Camp, Nan had not expected such heat. The pools beside the road steamed. The forest was atune from daybreak to midnight with winged denizens, for insect and bird life seemed unquenchable in the Big Woods. Especially was this true of the tamarack swamp. It was dreadfully hot at noontide on the corduroy road which passed Toby Vanderwiller's little farm; but often Nan Sherwood went that way in the afternoon. Mr. Mangel, the school principal, had written Nan and encouraged her to send a full description of some of Corson Vanderwiller's collection, especially of the wonderful death's-head moth, to a wealthy collector in Chicago. Nan did this at once. So, one day, a letter came from the man and in it was a check for twenty-five dollars. "This is a retainer," the gentleman wrote. "I am much interested in your account of the lame boy's specimens. I want the strangely marked moth in any case, and the check pays for an option on it until I can come and see his specimens personally." Nan went that very afternoon to the tamarack swamp to tell the Vanderwillers this news and give Toby the check. She knew poor Corson would be delighted, for now he could purchase the longed-for silk dress for his grandmother. The day was so hot and the way so long that Nan was glad to sit down when she reached the edge of the sawdust strip, to rest and cool off before attempting this unshaded desert. A cardinal bird—one of the sauciest and most brilliant of his saucy and brilliant race, flitted about her as she sat upon a log. "You pretty thing!" crooned Nan. "If it were not wicked I'd wish to have you at home in a cage. I wish—" She stopped, for in following the flight of the cardinal her gaze fastened upon a most surprising thing off at some distance from the sawdust road. A single dead tree, some forty feet in height and almost limbless, stood in solemn grandeur in the midst of the sawdust waste. It had been of no use to the woodcutters and they had allowed the shell of the old forest monarch to stand. Now, from its broken top, Nan espied a thin, faint column of blue haze rising. It was the queerest thing! It was not mist, of course and she did not see how it could be smoke. There was no fire at the foot of the tree, for she could see the base of the bole plainly. She even got up and ran a little way out into the open in order to see the other side of the dead tree. The sky was very blue, and the air was perfectly still. Almost Nan was tempted to believe that her eyes played her false. The column was almost the color of the sky itself, and it was thin as a veil. How could there be a fire in the top of that tall tree? "There just isn't! I don't believe I see straight!" declared Nan to herself, moving on along the roadway. "But I'll speak to Toby about it." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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