“Always. For some reason, that gory fairy tale and Cinderella were my favorites when I was a kid.”
“I liked them, too,” Rhoda agreed, “but they weren’t my favorites, not by any means. I was brought up on stories of buried treasure, tales that have been handed down from generation to generation till no one knows whether they are true or false.”
Rhoda’s eyes were alight as she spoke, and her face had a far away look on it. She was recalling the tales an old Spanish maid had regaled her with as a child. They were tales of bloody massacres, of hidden treasure, of gold and silver and rubies and sapphires locked in heavy Spanish chests and concealed in caves, of lost mines, richer than any man has ever remembered, of wandering tribes who knew the answers but would never tell lest the wrath of God descend upon them and wipe them all away.
She sighed softly.
Bess sat quietly, waiting and hoping that Rhoda would talk more. But the girl was silent, as she once more looked down the hill. “You’re expecting Grace Mason, Procrastination Boggs, and Laura Polk, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes, they’ve been the closest friends Nan has had here,” Bess returned. “So I asked them all.”
Bess was right. They were Nan’s closest friends, as anyone who has read the complete Nan Sherwood series knows. Of all the girls, Bess is the only one who has been with Nan since the beginning. She made her appearance in the very first volume of the series, “Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp, or the Old Lumberman’s Secret.” This volume opens with Nan living happily on Amity Street in Tillbury with her mother and dad.
She goes to Tillbury High School, enjoys sports, makes good grades, and is popular with her classmates. Her only real regret, which she carefully conceals from her parents, is the knowledge that she cannot afford to accompany Bess Harley to Lakeview Hall where they had both always hoped to go together. Suddenly Papa Sherwood loses his job and Mama inherits a fortune in Scotland that makes it necessary for the two to cross the ocean, leaving Nan behind. The plucky young girl then accompanies her uncle, a bluff, hearty lumberman, to Northern Michigan. There in a series of adventures that follow one on the other in swift succession, Nan clears up the mystery surrounding her uncle’s title to a valuable piece of property and wins the admiration of all whom she meets.
In “Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall or the Mystery of the Haunted Boathouse,” the two girls arrive at the big boarding school on the bluff overlooking Lake Huron and immediately find themselves in trouble with Laura Riggs. In chapter after chapter of fun and excitement and thrills galore we see the two girls at school. Constantly getting in and out of difficulties themselves, they involve their new friends, Grace Mason, whose acquaintance you have already made in this book, Laura Polk, a lively red-headed girl with a vivid imagination, and Amelia “Procrastination” Boggs, a serious soul with a roomful of clocks. But perhaps the principal character is a ghost that nearly does away with Mrs. Cupp, the stern watchful assistant of Dr. Beulah Prescott, the school’s principal. Nan meets the ghost and conquers it with some help from Walter Mason, Grace’s brother, amid much mystery and much trouble.
This over, the Masons invite Nan and her friends to spend the Christmas holidays with them in Chicago. So, in “Nan Sherwood’s Winter Holidays or Rescuing the Runaways” we see her continuing her adventures in the biggest city she has ever visited. How she makes friends with a famous movie star and solves the mystery of the disappearance of two young farm girls who have come to the city to make their fortunes is told in this volume.