Mandie Collection, The: 8 (9 page)

“Oh no, we couldn’t do that!” Mandie exclaimed. “My mother would be madder than an old wet hen. We would be in deep trouble. Why don’t we just go in the parlor and sit by the fire while Joe tells us about his college?”

“Yes,” Sallie agreed.

“That would be more interesting than trying to solve these mysteries that have no solutions,” Jonathan joked.

“Ah, but Mandie can always find a mystery, and I don’t know of a single one she hasn’t been able to unravel,” Joe said, smiling at Mandie.

“That’s because there’s always an answer to a mystery if you keep at it long enough,” Mandie said with a smile of satisfaction as she led the way down the hallway to the parlor.

Snowball raced ahead and hurried to curl up on the warm hearth. Mandie and her friends sat down close by.

“Tell me one thing, Joe,” Jonathan began. “How did you happen to start college at midyear?”

“That’s because I need to catch up on some studies that Mr. Tallant didn’t teach. My first half year will be for that. Then in the fall I will begin the first full-length year,” Joe explained.

“I never heard of anyone doing that before. I always thought you had to have already had the required subjects before the college would admit you,” Jonathan replied.

“You still do. The college is allowing me to do this because of Mr. Tallant’s recommendation and because he does not teach what I need,” Joe said.

“That must be partly because of the high score your father said you made on the examinations,” Mandie said.

Joe squirmed around in his seat. He was never comfortable with compliments. “I suppose so,” he said.

At that moment Mandie heard the front door open and voices in the hall. Her mother and grandmother had returned, and it sure sounded like Polly with them. In a moment the three of them appeared in the doorway to the parlor.

“Polly will be staying for supper, dear,” Elizabeth said. “Has your father returned from his calls, Joe?”

“No, ma’am,” Joe replied.

Polly entered the parlor and sat down in a chair next to the settee where Joe and Jonathan were sitting.

“We’re going on up to our rooms,” Mrs. Taft told them. “We’ll be back down in time for supper.”

“That won’t be long,” Mandie called to the two women as they went on down the hallway.

“What did y’all buy at the store?” Polly asked Mandie.

“The store?” Mandie questioned.

“Your mother told my mother y’all had gone to the store,” Polly said. “Did you buy anything interesting?”

“Interesting? No,” Mandie said, glancing at Joe. Snowball was sitting near her foot, and she quickly gave him a push. Snowball stood up and meowed loudly. “Oh, you want out, Snowball?” Mandie asked as she rose and started toward the door to the hall. “Come on. I’ll let you out.”

Snowball looked uncertainly at his mistress and then quickly followed her into the hallway. She opened the front door, but the cat didn’t want to go out. He just stood there, looking up at his mistress.
Oh well
, she thought,
maybe that gave Polly enough time to change the subject
. Mandie didn’t want Joe to know what she and Sallie had been doing that afternoon while the boys were at Polly’s house. And she knew Polly was good at giving away secrets.

Mandie returned to the parlor and sat back down. Snowball ran off down the hallway toward the kitchen.

“I would love to see New Orleans sometime,” Polly was saying to Joe.

“Then go see it,” Jonathan spoke up, secretly grinning at Mandie.

Polly turned to look at Jonathan and said with a frown, “I plan to sometime soon, but I would like to visit New York first.”

“Polly, we don’t have all that many holidays from school,” Mandie told her. “You may have to wait till summertime to do all this traveling you’re planning.”

“My mother can always get me out of school if there’s something we want to do,” Polly replied.

“Then you’ll never graduate from school to go to college if you take too much time off,” Jonathan said.

Mandie heard the front door open again, and she quickly stepped to the doorway of the parlor to see who it was.

“It’s just me,” Dr. Woodard said as he came on down the corridor.

“I’m so glad you got back in time for supper,” Mandie told him.

“I am, too, but I need to go and clean up,” the doctor replied as
he stopped to look inside the parlor. “Son, come with me. We need to talk a few minutes,” he said to Joe.

“Yes, sir,” Joe said, coming to join him in the hallway.

“We’ll be back down in a few minutes,” Dr. Woodard called back to Mandie as he and Joe went toward the staircase.

Mandie quickly rejoined her friends in the parlor. She decided the best thing to do was to explain to Polly about the party.

“Polly, we are planning on giving Joe a surprise going-away party on Monday night. You are welcome to help us, but please don’t let Joe know what we are doing. That’s what we went to the store for today,” Mandie explained as she sat down near Polly. “We bought presents for him, and we’re going to decorate the back parlor, but we’ll have to do that after he goes to bed so he won’t see us.”

“I’ll get him a present, too, and I want to help you decorate,” Polly replied, her dark eyes sparkling with excitement. “I can run back home and ask my mother if I can spend the night with you.”

“We have to make the decorations first,” Sallie spoke up.

“Yes, and then we’ll probably decorate tomorrow night,” Mandie added.

“So I suppose I’d better buy a gift for Joe, too,” Jonathan remarked as he listened to the conversation. “Will that store downtown be open on Monday?”

“It’s open every day except Sunday,” Mandie told him.

“I’ll go with you, Jonathan, so I can buy something,” Polly told him.

Jonathan looked at Mandie and shrugged his shoulders.

Mandie smiled at him and said, “Then I’ll stay home and keep Joe occupied so he won’t know what you are doing.”

Polly looked at her thoughtfully with a frown. “Mandie, you could go with Jonathan, and I could stay here and keep Joe from finding out about things.”

Mandie sighed loudly and said, “Polly, when do you plan to buy your present for Joe? I thought you wanted to go with Jonathan so you could purchase something.”

“Well, I suppose I could go to the store as soon as they open Monday morning. It won’t take me but a few minutes, and then I could come on over here and stay with Joe so Jonathan could go shopping,” Polly
explained. “And you could go with Jonathan, since he doesn’t even know where the store is.”

“No, Polly,” Mandie objected. “I will stay here with Joe and you go with Jonathan. It will be much less complicated if we do it that way.”

Jonathan looked at Polly and grinned as he said, “What’s the matter, Polly? Don’t you want to go to the store with me?”

Polly became flustered and quickly replied, “Of course I do, Jonathan. I was just trying to arrange things more neatly. Of course I’ll go with you. You just let me know what time Monday, and I will be ready.”

“Then that’s settled,” Jonathan said, still smiling at Polly. “Secret matters tend to get complicated, don’t they?” He looked at Mandie.

“They sure do,” Mandie agreed.

Dr. Woodard returned to the parlor with Elizabeth, Mrs. Taft, and Joe. They all found seats around the room. Even Snowball strolled back in and went to stretch out on the warm hearth.

“It won’t be long now till supper, just in case any of you young people are starving,” Elizabeth remarked with a smile as she looked around the room.

“I’m absolutely weak with hunger,” Jonathan said, grinning.

Mandie looked at Jonathan and said, “Aunt Lou knows how much you and Joe like to eat, so I’m sure she’ll have plenty of everything.” She glanced at Joe and noticed he was silent. She wondered what he and his father had discussed upstairs.
Oh well
, she thought,
I can’t know everything
.

Aunt Lou came into the parlor to announce, “De food be on de table, Miz ’Liz’beth.”

Elizabeth rose and said, “Thank you, Aunt Lou. We’re on our way.”

In the dining room the young people were at one end of the long table and the adults at the other. Mandie realized she wouldn’t be able to hear a word of their conversation unless they spoke loudly, which they never did. But on the other hand, she and her friends could discuss their secrets without being overheard.

At the last minute Jason Bond came hurrying into the room.

“Sit with us, Mr. Jason,” Mandie called to him.

The old man smiled and pulled out a chair across from Mandie. “I
know what you’re up to,” he said with a big smile. “You think I might know something about your mysteries, right?”

“Well,” Mandie said hesitantly. “Maybe you do. Have you learned anything about anything?” She passed him the bowl of potatoes that was sitting in front of her plate.

“Now, that covers a lot of territory,” Mr. Bond said. “I did ask around the feedstore today if any of the real old-timers kept business journals on their farms back in the old days when there were quite a few large spreads around here. And guess what? They all did. In fact, they seemed to think I was asking a silly question. So there you have it. That old book must have been the Shaws’ record for the farm.” He put a potato on his plate and reached for the platter of ham.

“It looks so old. It must have been a long time ago,” Mandie replied. “But, anyway, I’ll still ask Uncle John about it whenever he comes back home.”

“You didn’t find any trace of that turkey, did you?” Jonathan asked. He grinned at the old man.

“No, I wasn’t really looking for that bird because it must be long gone by now, nevermore to be seen by us,” Jason Bond replied. He continued filling his plate as the young people passed the food.

“Maybe when Uncle John comes back home he can help us out,” Mandie said. “He may know something about the quilt, too, Sallie.” She looked at her Cherokee friend.

“Yes, he is part Cherokee, and his white people gave a home to the Cherokee people for a long time,” Sallie said. “Remember, Mandie, that my grandfather lived here also at one time.”

“That’s right. Uncle Ned told me about that,” Mandie agreed as she buttered a hot biscuit.

Aunt Lou was standing at the sideboard ready to wait on the table. Liza came in through the doorway from the hall. Mandie glanced her way.

“I needs to give a message to de doctuh,” Liza said, looking at the old woman.

“A message? Whut kinda message?” Aunt Lou asked.

“De man he say important message,” Liza replied. “De man at de do’ he say his friend got hurt bad, need de doctuh,” Liza explained.

Everyone at the table had stopped to listen.

“A man is hurt, Liza?” Dr. Woodard asked.

“Yes, suh,” Liza replied. “He wait at de do’ to take you to de hurt man.”

Dr. Woodard stood up, laid down his napkin, and said, “I’d better go see what this is all about.”

“You really should finish your supper, Dr. Woodard. You’ve been making calls all day,” Elizabeth said.

“I’ll be right back and finish what’s on my plate,” the old doctor told her as he left the room.

“An accident? The man must have had an accident of some kind, don’t you think?” Mandie asked her friends.

“Yes,” Sallie agreed.

“I know my father has to go whenever he’s needed, but I know he’s tired, too,” Joe remarked. “He has been all the way across the mountain today making calls.”

“Maybe it won’t take long, whatever needs to be done,” Mandie said.

Dr. Woodard came back in a couple of minutes and sat down at the table. “Seems the man fell somewhere over near the mountain,” he said. “I told the man to wait while I finish my supper.”

“Liza, you go git Abraham hitch up de doctuh’s horse and buggy so’s he don’t hafta do dat,” Aunt Lou told the young girl.

“Yessum, I do dat,” Liza said and left the room.

Dr. Woodard was finished eating in a few minutes, and everyone else was done, as well. They all rose to follow the doctor out of the room.

“I’ll run up and get your bag,” Joe told his father and ran up the stairs.

The adults went to sit in the parlor, while the doctor waited at the parlor doorway for Joe to bring his bag. The young people stood around and then followed the doctor to the front door when he was ready to leave.

“I may be late,” Dr. Woodard called back. “The man is way over on the mountain.”

Mandie looked outside. There was a man standing beside a horse down at the gate to the road. Although the daylight was failing, she thought he looked familiar.

“That man,” she said to her friends. “Have y’all ever seen him before?”

The young people watched as Dr. Woodard hurried out to the driveway where Abraham had his buggy waiting. He jumped in and drove on down to the gate. The stranger got on his horse and led the way down the road.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him, but then I don’t know everybody here because I don’t live here,” Joe remarked.

“I sure don’t recognize him,” Jonathan added.

Mandie looked at Sallie and together they said, “That man in the store.”

Joe asked, “That man in the store? What does that mean?”

“I think Sallie and I saw him in the store—one day,” Mandie said, fearing Joe would ask when they were in the store.

“Anyhow, I hope my father is not gone long,” Joe remarked.

The girls walked ahead of the boys back to the front porch and inside.

“It’s cold out there,” Joe remarked as he and Jonathan went into the parlor, where the fire warmed the room.

Mandie pulled at Sallie’s hand at the doorway of the parlor and whispered, “I’m sure that was the man who bumped into me at the store today.”

“Yes, I think he was,” Sallie agreed.

“And I don’t believe he lives here,” Mandie said.

“Dr. Woodard may be able to tell us something when he returns,” Sallie suggested.

“He was a strange-acting man,” Mandie declared. “I’ll be anxious to find out where Dr. Woodard went and who the injured man is. Maybe he is someone who lives here in Franklin.”

The girls entered the parlor and sat down. Mandie’s mind was still trying to figure out this latest mystery.

CHAPTER EIGHT