Chapter VI. A SPRAT FOR A HERRING
"I don't need the doctor this time, honey; joy never killed yet."
So said Mrs. Sherwood, opening her eyes to see the scared face of Nanclose above her. Then she saw her husband at her feet, quietly chafingher hands in his own hard, warm palms. She pulled hers gently from hisclasp and rested them upon his head. Mr. Sherwood's hair was iron-gray,thick, and inclined to curl. She ran her little fingers into it andclung tightly.
"Let, let me get my breath!" she gasped. Then, after a moment she smiledbrilliantly into the wind-bitten face of the kneeling man. "It's allover, Robert," she said.
"My dear!" he cried thickly; while Nan could not wholly stifle the cryof fear that rose to her lips.
"It's all over," repeated the little woman. "All the worry, all thepoverty, all the uncertainty, all the hard times."
Mr. Sherwood looked startled indeed. He had no idea what the letterfrom Scotland contained, and he feared that his wife, who had alreadysuffered so much, was for the moment quite out of her head.
"My poor Jessie," he began, but her low, sweet laugh stopped him.
"Not poor! Never poor again, Robert!" she cried. "God is very good tous. At the very darkest hour He has shown us the dawn. Robert, we arerich!"
"Great goodness, Jessie! What do you mean? Exclaimed Mr. Sherwood,stumbling to his feet at last.
"It's true! It's true, Papa Sherwood!" Nan cried, clapping her hands."Don't you call ten thousand dollars riches?"
"Ten, thousand, dollars?" murmured her father. He put his hand tohis head and looked confusedly about for a seat, into which he weaklydropped. Nan had picked up the letter and now she dramatically thrust itinto his hand.
"Read that, Papa Sherwood!" she said commandingly.
He read the communication from the Scotch attorney, first with immensesurprise, then with profound doubt. Who but a young imaginative girl,like Nan, or a woman with unbounded faith in the miracles of God, likeher mother, could accept such a perfectly wonderful thing as being real?
"A hoax," thought the man who had worked so hard all his life withoutthe least expectation of ever seeing a penny that he did not earnhimself. "Can it be that any of those heedless relatives of my wife's inMemphis have attempted a practical joke at this time?"
He motioned for Nan to bring him the envelope, too. This he examinedclosely, and then read the communication again. It looked all regular.The stationery, the postmark, the date upon it, all seemed perfectly inaccord.
Mrs. Sherwood's gay little laugh shattered the train of her husband'sthought. "I know what the matter is with you, Papa Sherwood," she said."You think it must be a practical joke."
"Oh!" gasped Nan, feeling a positive pain at her heart. This awfulpossibility had never entered her mind before.
"But it isn't," went on her mother blithely. "It is real. Mr. HughBlake, of Emberon, must have been very old; and he was probably assaving and canny as any Scotchman who ever wore kilts. It is notsurprising that he should have left an estate of considerable size-----"
"Ten thousand dollars!" breathed Nan again. She loved to repeat it.There was white magic in the very sound of such a sum of money. But herfather threw a conversational bomb into their midst the next instant.
"Ten thousand dollars, you goosey!" he said vigorously. "That's the maindoubt in the whole business. It isn't ten thousand dollars. It's fiftythousand dollars! A pound, either English or Scotch, is almost five ofour dollars. Ten thousand dollars would certainly be a fortune for us;fifty thousand is beyond the dreams of avarice."
"Oh, dear me!" said Nan weakly.
But Mrs. Sherwood merely laughed again. "The more the better," she said."Why shouldn't we be able to put fifty thousand dollars to good use?"
"Oh, we can, Momsey," said Nan eagerly. "But, will we be let?"
Mr. Sherwood laughed grimly at that; but his wife continued confidently:
"I am sure nobody needs it more than we do."
"Why!" her daughter said, just as excitedly, "we'll be as rich as BessHarley's folks. Oh, Momsey! Oh, Papa Sherwood! Can I go to LakewoodHall?"
The earnestness of her cry showed the depths to which that desire hadplumbed during these last weeks of privation and uncertainty. It wasNan's first practical thought in relation to the possibility of theirchanged circumstances.
The father and mother looked at each other with shocked understanding.The surprise attending the letter had caused both parents to forget,for the moment, the effect of this wonderful promise of fortune, whethertrue or false, on imaginative, high-spirited Nan.
"Let us be happy at first, Nan, just in the knowledge that some money iscoming to us," Mrs. Sherwood said more quietly. "Never mind how much, orhow little. Time will tell all that."
"Now you talk like father," cried Nan, pouting.
"And let father talk a little, too," Mr. Sherwood said, smiling, "andto you both." His right forefinger struck the letter emphatically in hisother hand. "This is a very wonderful, a blessed, thing, if true. But ithas to be proven. We must build our hopes on no false foundation."
"Oh, Papa Sherwood! How can we, when the man says there-----"
"Hush!" whispered Momsey, squeezing her excited little daughter's hand.
"In the first place," continued Mr. Sherwood quietly and gravely, "theremay be some mistake in the identification of your mother, child, as theniece mentioned in this old man's will."
"Oh!" Nan could not help that gasp.
"Again, there may be stronger opposition to her claim than this lawyerat present sees. Fifty thousand dollars is a whole lot of money, andother people by the name of Blake will be tempted by it."
"How mean of them!" whispered Nan.
"And, above all," pursued Mr. Sherwood, "this may be merely a scheme byunprincipled people to filch small sums of money from gullible people.The 'foreign legacy swindle' is worked in many different ways. Theremay be calls for money, by this man who names himself Andrew Blake, forpreliminary work on the case. We haven't much; but if he is baiting forhundreds of Blakes in America he may secure, in the aggregate, a verytidy sum indeed."
"Oh, Father!" cried Nan. "That's perfectly horrid!"
"But perfectly possible. Let us not swallow this bait, hook, line andsinker. You see, he sends no copy of the will in question, orthat codicil relating to your mother's legacy; nor does he offeridentification or surety as to his own standing. Don't let thepossibilities of this wonderful thing carry you off your feet, my dear."
Nan's lip was quivering and she could scarcely crowd back the tears. Tohave one's hopes rise so high only to be dashed-----.
"Don't completely crush us, Papa Sherwood, with your perfectlyunanswerable logic," said his wife lightly. "We'll remember all thesestrictures, and more. We can at least put the matter to the test."
"Quite so," agreed her husband. "We will prepare the papers requestedby this Scotch attorney. I will even inquire of a good lawyer heresomething regarding the Scotch laws in such a matter as this, if it willbe necessary to make a personal appearance before the local courtsover there. And perhaps we can find out the true standing of Mr. AndrewBlake, of Kellam & Blake, Edinburgh. It will cost us a little money, andwe can ill spare it now; but to satisfy ourselves-----"
"We will throw a sprat to catch a herring," quoted Momsey cheerfully.
"Quite so," repeated Mr. Sherwood.
"But, dear, DEAR!" moaned Nan. "Is that all it is going to amount to?Don't you really believe it's all true, Papa Sherwood?"
"I can't say that I do, my dear," returned her father gravely. "Suchromantic things as this do not often happen outside of story books."
"Then, I declare!" cried Nan desperately, "I wish we lived in a storybook!"
"Your father will make inquiries at once, honey," said Momsey easily,seemingly very little disturbed herself by her husband's doubts andfears. To her mind this wonderful turn of fortune's wheel was in directanswer to prayer. Nothing could shake her faith in the final resultof her husband's inquiries. Yet, she
was proud of his caution and goodsense.
"I do think it is dreadful," murmured Nan, "to believe one's self richfor only a minute!"
"Have patience, honey," said her mother.
"Meanwhile," added Mr. Sherwood, rising, "I will go back to siftingcinders."
But Nan did no more sweeping that day.