CHAPTER VIII

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.