“You don't know what you are saying,” Nan returned seriously. “And, then, you are not poor, so you can afford to say it, and even do it.”
“Poor! I'm getting to hate that word,” cried Bess stormily. “It never bothered me before, much. We're not poor and none of our friends were poor. Not until those old mills closed. And now it seems all I hear is about folks being POOR. I hate it!”
“I guess,” said Nan ruefully, “you don't hate it half as much as those of us who have to suffer it.”
“I'm just going to find some way of getting you to Lakeview Hall, my dear,” Bess rejoined gloomily. “Why! I won't want to go myself if you don't go, Nan.”
Her friend thought she would better not tell Bess just then that the prospect was that she, with her father and mother, would have to leave Tillbury long before the autumn. Mr. Sherwood was trying to obtain a situation in Chicago, in a machine shop. He had no hope of getting another foreman's position.
Nothing had been heard from Mr. Adair MacKenzie, of Memphis. Mrs. Sherwood wanted to write again; but her husband begged her not to. He had a proper pride. It looked to him as though his wife's cousin did not care to be troubled by the necessities of his relations.
“We'll get along!” was Mr. Sherwood's repeated and cheerful statement. “Never say die! Hope is our anchor! Fate shall not balk us! And all the other copy-book maxims.”
But it was Mrs. Sherwood and Nan who managed to save and scrimp and be frugal in many infinitesimal ways, thus making their savings last marvelously.
Nan gave up her entire Saturdays to household tasks. She insisted on that, and urged the curtailment of the weekly expense by having Mrs. Joyce come in to help but one day.
“I can iron, Momsey, and if I can't do it very well at first, I can learn,” declared the plucky girl. “And, of course, I can sweep. That's good for me. Our physical instructor says so. Instead of going to the gym on Saturday, I'll put in calisthenics and acrobatic stunts with a broom and duster.”