"No, no! That's merely an old woman's home-made plaster on the
wound. Something more drastic. Salt air. A long, slow voyage,
overseas. It often wracks the system, but it brings the patient
to better and more stable health. Jessie may yet be a strong,
well woman if we take the right course with her."

Nevertheless, Mr. Sherwood wrote to his brother. He had to do
so, it seemed. There was no other course open to him.

And while he fished in that direction, Momsey threw out her line
toward Memphis and Adair MacKenzie. Mr. Sherwood pulled in his
line first, without much of a nibble, it must be confessed.

"Dear Bob," the elder Sherwood wrote: "Things are flatter than a
stepped-on pancake with me. I've got a bunch of trouble with old
Ged Raffer and may have to go into court with him. Am not
cutting a stick of timber. But you and Jessie and the little
nipper "("Consider!" interjected Nan, "calling me 'a little
nipper'! What does he consider a big 'nipper'?") "come up to
Pine Camp. Kate and I will be mighty glad to have you here. Tom
and Rafe are working for a luckier lumberman than I, and there's
plenty of room here for all hands, and a hearty welcome for you
and yours as long as there's a shot in the locker."

"That's just like Hen," Nan's father said. "He'd divide his last
crust with me. But I don't want to go where work is scarce. I
must go where it is plentiful, where a man of even my age will be
welcome."

"Your age, Papa Sherwood! How you talk," drawled Nan's mother in