CHAPTER XXIV—THE AWAKENING
With the opening of spring and the close of the sledding season, work had stopped at Adams’ camp. Rather, the entire plant had been shipped twenty miles deeper into the forest—mill, bunk-house, cook-shed, and such corrugated-iron shacks as were worth carting away.
All that was left on the site of the busy camp were huge heaps of sawdust, piles of slabs, discarded timbers, and the half-burned bricks into which had been built the portable boiler and engine.
And old Judy Mason. She was not considered worth moving to the new site of the camp. She was bedridden with rheumatism. This was the report Tim, the hackman, had brought in.
The old woman’s husband had gone with the outfit to the new camp, for he could not afford to give up his work. Judy had not been so bad when the camp was broken up, but when Tim went over for a load of slabs for summer firewood, he discovered her quite helpless in her bunk and almost starving. The rheumatic attack had become serious.
Amanda Parlow had at once ridden over with Dr. Nugent. Then she had come home for her bag and had insisted on the carpenter’s driving her back to the abandoned camp, proposing to stay with Judy till the old woman was better.
Aunty Rose had one comment to make upon it, and Carolyn May another. Mr. Stagg’s housekeeper said:
“That is just like a parcel of men folks—leaving an old woman to look out for herself. Disgraceful! And Amanda Parlow will not even be thanked for what she does.”
“How brave and helpful it is of Miss Amanda!” Carolyn May cried. “Dear me, when I grow up, I hope I can be a gradjerate nurse like Miss Mandy.”
“I reckon that’s some spell ahead,” chuckled Mr. Parlow, to whom she said this when he picked her up for a drive after taking his daughter to the camp.