Mandie Collection, The: 8 (10 page)

ONE MISSING

Mandie and Sallie were up early the next morning. As soon as they were dressed, they went down to the kitchen to find out who was coming to breakfast. Snowball followed them.

“I dun had Liza lay out de food fo’ y’all in de dinin’ room ’cause Miz ’Liz’beth say last night she and yo’ grandma gonna sleep late, what wid de men all bein’ gone,” Aunt Lou told Mandie. She was sitting at her table in the kitchen drinking coffee. She rose to set a plate of scraps down by the stove for the cat.

“I was hoping we could eat with you in here where it’s nice and warm,” Mandie said with a disappointed smile.

“It ain’t cold in de dinin’ room. Abraham dun made dat fire over an hour ago,” Aunt Lou replied.

“Have Joe and Jonathan been for their breakfast yet?” Mandie asked.

“Ain’t seed ’em yit,” the old woman told her. “Now you jes’ git on in de dinin’ room. Liza waitin’ fo’ y’all in dere, my chile.” She sat back down.

“All right, if we have to,” Mandie said with a smile, turning back toward the door. “Come on, Sallie. Let’s go eat everything up before the boys get it.”

“That would be hard to do,” Sallie said, following her out of the room.

When the girls entered the dining room, Liza was putting white linen napkins and silverware on the matching white linen tablecloth covering the long dining table. She looked up at the girls and said, “Ev’rything dun ready over dere.” She pointed to the sideboard laden with covered dishes.

Mandie crossed the room to pick up a plate from the sideboard. Sallie followed. “Have Joe and Jonathan been in to eat yet?” she asked, raising a silver lid on a dish to get a hot biscuit.

“I ain’t seed ’em,” Liza said, finishing laying the silverware and napkins. She straightened up and looked at Mandie. “Only one been in to eat was Mistuh Bond. He dun et and run off somewhere on bidness he say.”

“He’s always going somewhere on business for Uncle John,” Mandie said, filling her plate with grits, bacon, and eggs.

Sallie put two hot biscuits on her plate, covered them with black molasses, and added a piece of ham on the side.

When the girls sat down at the table with their food, Liza brought the coffeepot and filled their cups. “You reckon dat doctuh son dun run off to dat cullege place he be talkin’ ’bout?” Liza asked, taking the coffeepot back to the sideboard and placing it on the rack over the warming flame.

Mandie laughed and said, “No, I don’t think he’d be gone to college. He’s probably not up yet, or Jonathan, either.” She sipped her coffee.

“It is early for us to be up,” Sallie reminded her, slicing the ham on her plate.

The door suddenly opened, and Joe and Jonathan rushed into the room.

“Well, so y’all are up and—” Mandie began.

“My father didn’t come back last night,” Joe interrupted her as he walked over to the sideboard, picked up a cup and saucer, and poured coffee. Jonathan did likewise.

Mandie was alarmed. “Dr. Woodard didn’t come back last night?” she asked, dropping her fork onto her plate and quickly swallowing the mouthful of food. She looked at Joe. He seemed awfully worried. Quickly pushing back her chair, she stood up. “Come sit by me and
eat something, Joe, while we discuss this,” she told him. She pulled out the chair next to her.

Joe, with both hands on the cup and saucer, walked over to the table and sat down next to Mandie. “I’m not really hungry,” he protested. “I can’t think about anything but what happened to my father.”

Jonathan filled his plate at the sideboard and sat down by Sallie. “You need to eat something,” he told Joe.

Liza quickly picked up a plate on the sideboard and began loading it with food from the various dishes. She brought it over to the table, placed it in front of Joe, and said, “I’se gwine act like Aunt Lou now. You’se gwine eat all dat food and no fuss ’bout it.” She stood by his chair.

Joe looked up at her and said, between a frown and a slight smile, “You can’t act like Aunt Lou, Liza. You’re not big enough.”

“I mought not be big ’nuff, but I sho’ knows how to go git Aunt Lou, and she make you eat,” Liza told him and went back to watch from the sideboard.

“Liza, I think you ought to go get Aunt Lou anyway,” Mandie told the girl. “We need to ask her if she knows anything about Dr. Woodard.”

“Sho’ nuff,” Liza said and hurried out the door.

“Joe, your father did say he might be late, so maybe the man was seriously ill and he had to stay awhile. He also said it was a long way off, so all that would take time,” Mandie told Joe.

Joe finally sipped his coffee and said, “I know. I’ve considered all that. But it’s after seven o’clock in the morning, and he’s been gone since right after supper last night.”

“I suppose you looked to see if his horse and buggy were in the barn?” Mandie asked.

Joe nodded and said, “They’re not there.”

“We also looked around the neighborhood to see if he might have had trouble with the horse or the buggy and got stranded somewhere, but nobody has seen him,” Jonathan said, slowly beginning to eat his food.

“Perhaps my grandfather will return this morning and he will find your father, Joe,” Sallie said.

Joe smiled at the Cherokee girl and said, “Thanks, Sallie. I know if anyone could find my father, Uncle Ned could.”

“This would happen with all the men gone,” Mandie said with a sigh. Then she quickly looked at Joe, who was pushing the food around on his plate with a fork. “Joe, we’ll just have to take charge. The four of us will have to search the whole town and all the roads going out.”

Aunt Lou had come into the room while Mandie was speaking, followed by Liza. “Now, whut is dis ’bout de doctuh not comin’ back?” she asked as she came to stand by the table. Liza went back to the sideboard.

Joe explained that his father had not returned. The old woman listened and frowned as he spoke. “I’m afraid something has happened,” Joe ended.

“Now, don’t you worry ’bout your papa,” Aunt Lou told him. “De sick man musta bin terrible sick. Why, de doctuh prob’ly gwine come down dat driveway any minute now.”

“Aunt Lou,” Mandie said, “I think we ought to go out and look for him, the four of us, that is.” She motioned to include her friend. “If Mother and Grandmother are not downstairs by the time we finish breakfast, we could go on, and you could explain to them where we went.”

“But, my chile, how I knows where y’all go? And how y’all gwine know if de doctuh come back and y’all out somewheres lookin’ fo’ him?” the old woman asked.

“The four of us can split up,” Mandie said, quickly swallowing a bit of bacon. “Jonathan and Sallie can look all around the town, and Joe and I can go out on the roads. There will be lots of people out on the country roads because today is Sunday and they’ll be going to church. We can ask everyone we see to let Dr. Woodard know where we are if they see him.”

Aunt Lou thought for a moment. “I s’pose dat wouldn’t do no harm,” she finally concluded. “But mind you, my chile. Don’t you and Joe be gone too long. Else somebody hafta come look fo’ y’all.”

Mandie looked around the table at her friends. “Is this agreeable with y’all?” she asked.

Everyone nodded their approval.

“Now, don’t y’all be goin’ off too long,” Aunt Lou warned them. “Miz ’Liz’beth and Miz Taft dey be down befo’ long.”

“We won’t, Aunt Lou,” Mandie promised as the old woman left the dining room.

The four hurried through their breakfast, put on their coats and hats, and were soon outside to begin their search. Snowball followed his mistress.

“Joe and I will begin on the main road out of town,” Mandie told Sallie. “You know your way around in Franklin, so you and Jonathan go up and down every street and every alley and look in everybody’s yard.”

“We will do that, Mandie,” Sallie agreed as Jonathan nodded.

“What exactly are we supposed to do if we locate Dr. Woodard?” Jonathan asked.

“Just tell him to go back to Mandie’s house and you, too, and wait for us,” Joe said.

When the four got to the gate at the road, they separated. Sallie and Jonathan began walking toward the center of town. Mandie and Joe went in the opposite direction, which led them out into the countryside. Still unnoticed by his mistress, Snowball bounced along behind them until they stopped.

Mandie slowed down to look up a trail leading off the road to the right. “Do you think we ought to go up there?” she asked Joe.

Both of them stopped to look.

“I don’t think my father could have gone up that path. It’s not wide enough for his buggy to get through,” Joe told her.

“You’re right,” Mandie agreed. “It probably goes to one house.”

Joe said, “There sure aren’t many people out this morning. I suppose when it gets time to go to church, everyone will be on the road.”

Mandie shivered slightly as she pulled her coat collar tighter around her neck. “It’s just too cold to be out unless you have a definite purpose,” she said, then added, “Like we do, and your father.”

Snowball began swishing by Mandie’s legs. She bent down to pick him up. “I figured you would be right behind us,” she told the cat as she held him in her arms. “Your feet are ice cold.” She rubbed his paws.

Joe smiled and said, “If you carry him, you will both be warmer.”

“He’s so heavy I can’t hurry, but I suppose I’ll have to tote him,” Mandie replied.

They walked on for almost two miles before they saw anyone outside, and then it turned out to be an old woman. As they approached a falling-down log house on the road, a dog began barking ferociously.
Snowball growled and dug his sharp claws into the shoulder of Mandie’s coat.

“Oh no!” Mandie quickly stopped in the road as she tried to see where the dog was.

“Stand there a minute,” Joe told her as the animal continued barking. He stepped ahead, and Mandie watched as a large brown mixed-breed dog appeared out of the bushes in the front yard of the shack. Joe looked back at Mandie and said, “He’s on a rope. We can get on by all right. He can’t reach us.”

Mandie slowly moved forward to join Joe as she held firmly to her white cat. “Let’s hurry and get past him,” she told Joe.

The two began moving faster, and the dog began barking louder. Just as they came in front of the house, an old woman came out of the undergrowth with a shotgun aimed directly at them.

“We’re only passing by,” Joe called to her over the noise of the dog.

“Don’t move another step, you hear?” the woman yelled at them as she walked closer.

“We’re sorry for disturbing your dog, but we are not coming into your yard,” Mandie said in a loud voice.

The woman came closer with the shotgun still pointed at the two, and then suddenly she dropped the gun down to her side as she laughed wildly and cried out, “Well, if it ain’t the doctor’s son!”

“You know my father?” Joe quickly asked as the three of them stood there with the dog still making a loud protest.

The woman turned back for a second toward the animal and yelled, “Now, cut that racket out, Mud, you hear? Shut up right now. Be quiet!”

Mandie and Joe watched as the dog obeyed and sat down in the bushes to watch them.

“Now, what is the doctor’s son doing out here on this lonely road so early in the morning, and Sunday morning at that?” the woman asked.

Mandie looked her over as Snowball finally settled down in her arms. The woman was toothless, had thin gray hair, and was wearing only a thin shawl around the shoulders of her faded cotton dress. She must be very poor.

“We are looking for my father, ma’am,” Joe replied. “Have you by any chance seen him?”

“Have I seen your doctor father?” the woman repeated. “Of course, I saw your father when he drove past here last night. Old Mud here saw him, too, and started that yelping he does when he sees a friend, so I looked out the window and saw Dr. Woodard coming down the road in his buggy. I thought perhaps he was coming to check on my rheumatism, but he didn’t even slow up, kept going, and so I thought, there must be someone mighty sick because he sure was in a hurry.”

“We’re staying at the Shaws’ house. This is Mandie Shaw. And my father went out on a call after supper last night and has not come back yet,” Joe explained.

“Yes, I know who the Shaws are. Mighty good family, they are,” the woman said. “Been knowing those people all my life, I reckon. Now, I wonder where the doctor went. Not many houses beyond here before you get into the mountain, you know.”

“He might have gone on into the mountain,” Mandie said.

“But there’s no one living in the mountain but bootleggers and beggars,” the woman said. “But then again, I suppose one of those bootleggers might have fallen ill and had to have a doctor.”

“But the man who came to our house to get Dr. Woodard said he had a friend who had been injured,” Mandie told her.

“Well, come to think of it, I suppose some of those bootleggers could have been shooting each other, or they could have shot a beggar. I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were y’all. I’m sure they are not going to shoot the doctor,” the woman said.

Mandie took a deep breath as she looked up at Joe, who was frowning. She turned back to the woman and asked, “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe we got your name, ma’am.”

The woman grinned at her and said, “Not many people nowadays that want to know my name, but since you told me yours, I reckon I ought to tell you mine. People call me Miz Maude Metts, but I’ve always said that’s not right because I have never been married and they ought to call me Miss Maude Metts.” She laughed.

Joe held out his hand and said, “I’m glad to meet you, Miss Maude Metts.”

The woman shook his hand and said, “I knew the doctor’s son
would do things right because his father does. He’s the only one who calls me by the right name, bless his heart.”

“Thank you, Miss Metts,” Joe said with a smile, and turning to look down the road, he said, “I suppose we’d better go on. If we don’t hurry and get this done and get back to Mandie’s house, I’m afraid her mother will be upset with us.”

“I don’t think her mother will be, but now that grandmother of hers, that’s a different story,” Miss Metts replied.

Mandie grinned at her and said, “I know exactly what you mean.”