AFTERNOON TEA
The girls from Lakeview Hall were not likely to forget their
experience on the car for many a long day. And they were honestly
appreciative of the fact that Rhoda Hammond, the girl from Rose
Ranch, had saved their lives.
But they did not really know how to show Rhoda that, in spite of
her bad start at the Hall, the attitude of at least the party of
girls who had been with her in the electric car, had changed toward
her.
Nan put her arms about the Western girl and kissed her warmly. She
could do that, for from the start she had been kind to the girl
from Rose Ranch. But the others hesitated. Rhoda was not a shallow
girl. She did not turn easily from one attitude to another.
The unconscious motorman had been picked up and laid on a seat in
the car, and the conductor had run them into Freeling. John was
there put in a hospital ambulance. That was all they could do for
him.
The doctors said he had been walking around suffering from
pneumonia for several days. The girls sent him flowers and some
other luxuries and comforts when he was better.
But what could they do for Rhoda?
"I don't think we had better try to do anything _for_ her," Nan
finally said, after suggestions had been discussed ranging from
presenting Rhoda with a gold medal to falling down on their knees
and begging her forgiveness.
"We have nothing really to ask her pardon for. It actually was her
own stupidity that made her begin so unfortunately among us. She,
perhaps, can't see that. Or, if she does, she is too obstinate to
admit it."
"Why, Nan!" cried warm-hearted Bess Harley, who, once moved in the
right direction, could not do too much for the object of her
approval. "Why, Nan! you speak as though you did not like Rhoda,
after all. You are the only one who stood up for her all those
weeks."
"When did I stand up for her?" demanded Nan. "I would not treat her
unkindly. But I have thought all the time she was in the wrong. And
there is no use going to Rhoda and telling her we were wrong and
that we are sorry. That would not only be a falsehood, but it would
do no lasting good."
"Hear! Hear!" cried Amelia. "Minerva Sherwood speaks."
"I guess Nan has got the 'wise' of it," agreed Laura. "No matter
how well we may think of Rhoda, she would be equally offended if we
all suddenly changed toward her in a way to make her conspicuous.
We must begin treating her naturally."
"That's all right," agreed Amelia. "But we cannot overlook the
incident of that car ride."
"I should say not!" exclaimed Bess Harley.
"Everybody is talking about it," said Grace.
"Dr. Beulah spoke of it this morning at chapel," Lillie said,
"although she did not mention Rhoda's name."
"But everybody knew who she meant," Bess declared.
"For that she can thank Miss March," laughed Laura. "She will never
get over talking about Rhoda's bravery."
"And poor Rhoda looked scared in chapel," said Nan. "She thought
she was going to be publicly commended for what she had done," and
Nan finished with laughter.
"Well," cried Bess, "what shall we do, girls?"
"No," Nan said once more with gravity, "that isn't it. It's what
will she do? That is the question. Let Rhoda meet us half way, at
least. Otherwise we'll all be stiff and formal and never get any
nearer to that wild Western girl than before. I'll tell you!"
"Go ahead. That's what we are waiting for. Tell us," begged Laura.
They gathered closer about the girl from Tillbury and Nan lowered
her voice while she explained her idea. So the girls of Corridor
Four--at least, all those who had been aboard the electric car when
Rhoda's self-possession had saved them from disaster--were merely
courteous to the girl from Rose Ranch, or smiled at her when they
met, and kept deftly away from the exciting adventure in their
conversation while Rhoda was near.
Apparently the afternoon tea was given in Room Seven in honor of
Beautiful Beulah, Nan's famous doll.
"But I'm too big to play dolls," Rhoda Hammond objected when Nan
urged her attendance on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
"Pshaw!" laughed Nan, "you're not too big to pass tea and cocoa and
sweet crackers to the primes who will come to worship at the shrine
of my Beautiful Beulah. That's what I want you for--to help. Bess
and I can't do it all."
It was hard to refuse Nan Sherwood anything.
"Laura declares one has to be real mad at you to get out of
anything you want us to do!" complained Bess one day, when yielding
to Nan's pressure and doing something she would have preferred not
to do.
These "doll-teas" in Number Seven, Corridor Four, had become very
popular toward the latter end of the previous term at Lakeview
Hall. Every girl in the school--even the seniors and juniors--knew
of Beautiful Beulah, and the little girls in the primary department
flocked to Nan Sherwood's parties whenever they had the chance,
bringing their own dolls.
On this particular occasion, however, the young girls came early,
were "primed" (as Laura said) with goodies and cocoa, and sent
away; the older girls, dropping in one by one, were huddled on
beds, chairs, the couch, and even sat Turk-fashion on the floor,
gradually filling the room. The crowd included all those girls who
had gone to Adminster two Saturdays previous.
Nan had kept Rhoda so busy helping behind the tea table that the
Western girl did not realize at once how the character of the party
had changed. And shrewd Nan had got Rhoda to talking, too.
A query or two about Rose Ranch, something about the Navaho blanket
Nan and her chum had bought for their couch--before she knew it the
girl from the West was eagerly describing her home, and telling
more in ten minutes about her life before she had come to Lakeview
Hall than she had related to anybody in all the weeks she had been
here.
"Rose Ranch must be a great place," sighed Bess longingly.
"A beautiful country?" suggested Amelia.
"Magnificent views all around us," Rhoda agreed softly. "A range of
hills to the southeast that we call the Blue Buttes. Many mesas on
their tops, you know, on which the ancient Indian peoples used to
till their gardens. There was a city of Cliff Dwellers not fifty
miles from our house."
"Sounds awf'ly interesting," declared Laura.
"And winding through the Blue Buttes is the old Spanish Trail. Up
from Mexico by that trail came the Spanish Conquistadors, they
say," Rhoda went on, quite excited herself now, in telling of her
home and its surroundings.
"And I s'pose there's an electric car line running through those
hills now--on the Spanish Trail, I mean?" laughed Laura.
"Well, no. We're not quite as far advanced as that," the Western
girl said, good-naturedly enough. "But we don't have any Indian
scares nowadays. The Indians used to ride through that gap in the
Blue Buttes years ago. Now it's only Mexican bandits."
"Never!" gasped Bess, sitting up suddenly.
"You don't mean it?" from Grace and Lillie in unison.
"You're just spoofing us, aren't you, Rhoda?" drawled Amelia Boggs.
"No, no. We do have Mexican bandits. There is Lobarto. He is no
myth."
"Fancy!" exclaimed one of the other girls. "A live bandit!"
"Very much so," said Rhoda. "He has made us a lot of trouble, this
Lobarto; although it has been six years since he came into our
neighborhood last. He drove off a band of father's horses at that
time. But our boys got after him so quick and chased him so hard
that they say he took less back to Mexico with him than be brought
over the border."
"What does that mean?" asked Bess quickly.
"Why, he brought with him a lot of plunder, they say," Rhoda
explained, "and he could not carry it back."
"Then your folks got the plunder?" inquired Nan.
"Not exactly! Lobarto hid it. But our boys got back the horses. And
they killed several of Lobarto's gang."
"Mercy! Just listen to her!" cried Laura excitedly. "Why! I was
just making believe about your coming from the wild and woolly
West; and you really do!"
"Not very woolly around Rose Ranch," said Rhoda grimly. "Father
does not approve of sheep. The nesters make us trouble enough,
without having sheepmen."
"What are 'nesters'?" asked Amelia.
"I guess you'd call 'em 'squatters' farther East. We don't like
them on the ranges. They are small farmers who come and take up
quarter sections of the open lands and fence them in."
"But is there really a treasure buried on Rose Ranch?" asked Nan,
much more interested in this than she wished the others to observe.
"Why, I suppose so. They all say so. Lobarto and his gang were run
off so quick that he had to cache almost everything but the hard
cash he had with him. He had raided two churches in Mexico and
plundered several haciendas before coming up from the Border, so
people say."
"Why don't you ranch folks go and dig up his loot?" demanded Bess,
wide-eyed.
"Well," laughed Rhoda, "we don't know where it is cached. It sounds
rather preposterous, too--a wagon-load of gold and silver plate,
altar ornaments, candlesticks, jeweled cloths, and all that. It
does sound sort of romantic, doesn't it?"
"I should say it did!" the girls chorused.
Nan did not say another word in comment at the time. She was
enormously curious about what she had overheard the Mexican girl
say in the shop at Adminster. And how strangely she had stared at
Rhoda Hammond!