TROUBLE FOR RHODA
"Oh, it's Rhoda," Laura admitted when the door was closed. "Nan,
something terrible's happened and Rhoda is in her room crying her eyes
out. Won't you come and see if you can't do something for her."
"Of course," Nan started for the door at once. "But what's happened?"
She and Bess asked this last together.
"Rhoda just received a telegram from her father asking her to come home
at once."
"Why?"
"Oh, girls," Laura herself was almost in tears, "Rhoda's mother is
seriously ill and they don't know whether or not she will live until
Rhoda gets there."
"Go downstairs," Nan took command of the situation at once, "and find
cousin Adair. Tell him what's happened and ask him what to do. I'll go
to Rhoda. Bess, you had better come too," she continued. "Somebody will
have to fix her bags so that she can leave at once. Now, don't any of
you cry in front of Rhoda, we've got to help her to be as brave as
possible. Maybe it isn't as bad as it seems." With this Nan and Bess and
Laura set about to help their friend and, for the time, all thoughts of
their Mexican journey were forgotten.
Mrs. Hammond, Rhoda's mother, had entertained the girls a couple of
years previous to the present story, on the Hammond ranch in the West.
They all remembered her as a beautifully graceful, sweet woman. Blind
for many years, she had not let her affliction crush her spirit and was,
perhaps, one of the happiest, nicest people they had ever known.
Those who have read "Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch or The Old Mexican's
Treasure" will remember Mrs. Hammond too and remember well her first
meeting with the girls.
"I'll never forget it," Nan had told her own mother again and again. "As
we rode up to the veranda of the low-roofed ranch house Mr. and Mrs.
Hammond stood there on the porch waiting for us. She was a tall lovely
person. I liked her the moment I saw her. As I came up the steps behind
her friend, Mrs. Janeway, she took hold of me and asked 'Who is this?'
"Before I had a chance to answer she ran her fingers lightly over my
face, even feeling my ears and the way my hair fluffed over my forehead
and the way my eyebrows were. Then, without any hesitation and before I
had said anything at all, she said, 'Why, this is Nan Sherwood that I
have heard so much about.'
"When I asked her how she knew, she laughed the prettiest laugh I've
ever heard, outside of yours, and said that she knew because Rhoda had
written home about me and because she was a witch. She knew the others
by touch too. Oh, she was such a nice person and so good to us all the
while we were there!
"She never once said a thing about her blindness. She seemed to take it
for granted and never excused herself on account of it.
"I only hope that, if ever anything terrible happens to me, I will
remember her and be as sweet and uncomplaining about it as she is."
The other girls had felt the same as Nan. All had left Rose Ranch with a
very warm feeling for Mrs. Hammond and they were all better girls for
having met her.
In the days that followed their return to school that year they sent her
a gift along with their bread-and-butter notes. Ever after that, boxes
Rhoda received from her Western home always contained some sort of
goodies specially marked for Rhoda's Lakeview Hall friends. So Mrs.
Hammond had become a well-beloved friend to them all.
Now, when the telegram came telling of her serious illness, they all
felt personally concerned.
"Oh, Nan," Laura came into the room where Nan was helping Rhoda dress
and comforting her as much as possible, "I can't find your cousin
anyplace. He seems to have gone out on business and he didn't leave word
with anyone as to where he was going."
"Well, we've got to find him, that's all." Nan was not one to give up
easily in any circumstances. "Have you tried to locate Walker Jamieson?"
"Yes, and I can't find him or Alice either. You don't know where they
were going, do you?"
"No." Already Nan was regretting that she had helped Alice and Walker
out. She felt that she needed them now, very much. "I tell you what you
do, you call up the railway station and find out what are the best
possible train connections that Rhoda can make. Then reserve her a
compartment. After that call those offices where we were yesterday and
ask whether cousin Adair is there or is expected.
"By the time you finish, Rhoda will be ready and we'll be downstairs at
the telegraph desk. We are going to wire her father so that he can have
someone at the station to meet her."
At these instructions, Laura flew across the hall to her own room to
make the calls, for she wished to keep things as quiet as possible
around Rhoda. In the meantime, both Amelia and Grace had heard what had
happened and came to help.
The girls were all sticking together in trouble even as they always did
in pleasure, and it was a great comfort to completely bewildered Rhoda.
Now, as Nan completed the job of helping Rhoda dress and Bess finished
packing her bags, there was a gentle knock on the door and a gentle
voice inquired, "May I come in?" It was Alice.
"Walker's gone for father," she said, "And Laura's asked me to tell you
that there's a train out in a half hour. Is everything ready?"
Rhoda nodded her head, but said nothing. She was trying hard now not to
cry.
"So you know where cousin Adair is?" Nan looked across the room at
Alice.
"No, but Walker will find him and have him here in no time at all,"
Alice replied quietly and confidently.
She had hardly finished the sentence, when those in the room heard the
firm tread of Adair MacKenzie in the hall and heard his voice boom out,
"Porter, porter, come here, and take these bags."
It was good to hear him, good to hear his decisiveness. Everyone in the
room felt better as soon as he opened the door.
"Here, here, what's all this?" He looked at Rhoda's red eyes. "Come,
girl, buck up," he patted her roughly on the shoulder. "Ready, are you?"
"You're going by plane. It leaves in fifteen minutes and there's a taxi
waiting downstairs. That red-headed girl, what's her name, got you a
compartment in a train, but we've cancelled that.
"Now, that good-for-nothing newspaper friend of my daughter's is
downstairs putting through a long distance call so that you can talk to
your father before you leave here.
"You can tell him that this is a private plane and that it will
practically drop you in your own back yard. Do they have back yards
where you come from?"
Rhoda nodded. How good everyone was being to her.
"Now, now, don't thank me," Adair MacKenzie forestalled her thanks.
"Help a nice girl like you out any time I can. Ready? You better go
downstairs. You've just got time to talk to your father before you make
the plane. You'll find everything comfortable there.
"Come, you, Nan," he motioned to his cousin, "You're the only one that
can come along with us. Don't want a lot of fuss. See the rest of you
later." With this, he hurried Nan and Rhoda out of the room and down the
elevator so quickly that Rhoda, in doing things, got control of herself,
just as Adair MacKenzie had known she would.
The talk with her father was comforting, but not encouraging, and it was
with a heavy, heavy heart that Rhoda Hammond waved good-by to her
friends at the airport a few minutes later.
Nan stifled a sob as the plane taxied across the field and rose into the
air. Adair MacKenzie looked down on her. "There, there, child," he said
gently, "Things will turn out all right and we'll make this up to the
girl sometime later."
Nan caught her upper lip between her teeth and tried to smile up at
him. "Please, please, make everything right." It was a prayer that she
breathed.