Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp by Annie Roe Carr

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Produced by Justin Philips

NAN SHERWOOD AT PINE CAMP

or, The Old Lumberman's Secret

By Annie Roe Carr

Chapter I. THE YELLOW POSTER

"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.

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