The Mandie Collection (10 page)

Mandie hurried through the hallway to the outside door at the end, with Joe close behind. She quickly glanced at the rack above the door. “Look! Uncle John's rifle is missing! He's taken his rifle. Where has he gone with a gun?”

“Well, I just don't know,” Joe said, looking puzzled as he stared at the empty rack. “Maybe he just took the gun down to clean it.”

“No, Joe, I feel sure he has taken the gun with him, but why? There must be some danger somewhere,” Mandie said thoughtfully.

“Let's go look around and see if we can find the gun,” Joe suggested.

“I know where he cleans it. There's a room in the barn where he keeps all his supplies and things,” Mandie said.

“All right, let's go look and see if the gun is in there,” Joe said.

Mandie opened the door, and as they went outside she said, “We can look, but I just know it's not there. Besides, Mother said he was repairing the barn. Why would he stop and clean his gun?”

They hurried across the backyard to the building, and Mandie led the way into the room that she said he always used. She opened the door and quickly looked around on the shelves, benches, and racks on the wall.

“You see, his gun is not in here,” Mandie told Joe. She leaned against a worktable and frowned.

“Maybe he left it somewhere else,” Joe suggested as he also frowned.

“No, he wouldn't leave his gun any place else. He's always so careful about it,” Mandie replied. She straightened up. “I'm going to ask Aunt Lou if she knows where Uncle John and Uncle Ned went. We didn't tell her they weren't in the backyard because I heard her talking about the secret and forgot to mention it to her. Come on.”

“Mandie, remember Aunt Lou told us to stay out of the kitchen so she can get the food cooked? She'll just shoo us out again,” Joe reminded her as he quickly followed her across the yard to the back door.

“I only want to ask her a question,” she said, leading the way to the kitchen door and pushing it open.

Aunt Lou and Jenny were still working around the cookstove and didn't hear them enter the room until Mandie spoke.

“Aunt Lou, do you know where Uncle John and Uncle Ned
have gone?” Mandie called across the room as she stopped in the doorway.

“Don't y'all come back in heah hinderin' us now,” Aunt Lou said as she glanced at the young people. “I done tole you we'se busy.”

“But, Aunt Lou, all I want to know is where has Uncle John gone? And Uncle Ned must be with him, because he's not here, either. Mother said they were repairing the barn when she left, but they're not out there, and their horses are also missing. In fact, we didn't even see Abraham out there. Where is he?” Mandie asked, talking fast so Aunt Lou couldn't interrupt her.

Aunt Lou turned from the stove and gave her a hard look. “Now, you listens heah, my chile,” she said firmly. “Abraham done gone to git a load of firewood dat Mistuh Burns cut fo' us, and I don't know nuthin' 'bout de where'bouts of de other two. Now if y'all don't leave us alone, you ain't gwine git no dinner. Go pester somebody else and leave us alone.”

Mandie could tell the old woman was getting frustrated with her, and she meekly said, “Yes, ma'am,” and stepped back out into the hallway with Joe and closed the door. She took a deep breath and stomped her foot.

“You know, Aunt Lou had already told us to stay out of the kitchen,” Joe reminded her. “She has extra work with your grandmother and me here.”

Mandie quickly looked at him and said, “I know one other place to go. Grandmother! I'm going to ask her if she knows anything about where Uncle John and Uncle Ned have gone.”

“I wouldn't disturb her, Mandie. She might be resting. Remember she said she would be back down in time to eat,” Joe told her as she climbed the steps ahead of him.

Mandie suddenly stopped on the steps and turned around to look at Joe. “Someone else is missing, also,” she said. “We haven't seen Liza or Mr. Jason since we came back from the Burnses.”

“Liza is probably working in the house somewhere, and Mr. Bond may be gone on an errand. He
is
your uncle's caretaker, you know, and therefore does move around a lot,” Joe said.

“We'll see,” Mandie said, continuing up the stairs.

When they reached the second floor, they met Liza in the hallway. Before Mandie could speak, the girl said, “All yo' beds done made
up now, and dat white cat he be sleepin' in de middle of yours, Missy 'Manda.”

Mandie stopped as Liza came toward them. “Thanks, Liza, but where is Mr. Jason? Have you seen him?” Mandie asked.

Liza stopped and looked at Mandie. “I don't rightly know, Missy,” she replied. “I ain't seen him since he hitched up de hawse and buggy fo' yo' grandmama. But den he always busy and I always busy, so I don't see much of him.”

Mandie knew Jason Bond did have a full-time job taking care of matters for her uncle, so maybe he was just gone on an errand of some kind.

“Do you know if my grandmother is still in her room?” Mandie asked.

“She sho' is,” Liza said. “She writin' letters on dat fancy pink paper when I goes in dere to make up huh bed. She tole me work real fast, so I did, and I lef' huh writin' dem letters.”

“Thanks, Liza,” Mandie said.

“I'se got to he'p Aunt Lou now in de kitchen,” Liza said as she went on past Mandie toward the stairway.

Mandie continued down the hallway to the door of the room that her grandmother occupied. Joe followed and waited as Mandie tapped on the door.

“Grandmother, are you in there?” she called through the closed door.

“Yes, dear, come on in,” Mrs. Taft replied from inside the room.

Mandie pushed the door open and stepped inside. Joe hesitated in the doorway.

Mrs. Taft looked up from the desk where she was writing on the pink paper that Liza had mentioned and asked, “What is it, dear?”

Mandie stepped over near her and was aware that her grandmother moved just a little to shield whatever she was writing from Mandie's view.

“You are the only one in the house, Grandmother,” Mandie told her. “You know when Mother left in the buggy she said Uncle John and Uncle Ned were working on the barn, but they are not. And Uncle John's rifle is missing from over the back door. Do you have any idea as to what is going on?”

“Going on, Amanda?” Mrs. Taft questioned.

“Yes, you see, when Joe and I went in the kitchen earlier, I overheard Aunt Lou saying somebody or other ought to know they can't keep a secret from me,” Mandie told her.

“A secret, dear?” Mrs. Taft asked.

“A secret, Grandmother,” Mandie replied. “Somebody is keeping a secret from me.”

“Keeping a secret from you is not unusual practice around here,” Mrs. Taft said with a big smile. “Everybody knows if you have the slightest inkling of a secret you'll go after it tooth and nail, and sometimes it's better if you don't know everything that goes on.”

Mandie frowned and said, “Grandmother! I only want to know where Uncle John and Uncle Ned are. Why should that be a secret?”

“That would depend on where they've gone and why,” Mrs. Taft said, then added, “But, anyhow, I'm as much in the dark as you are, dear. I have no idea about their whereabouts. And evidently your mother didn't know they were gone when she told you they were working on the barn.”

“Oh, shucks!” Mandie exclaimed, stomping her foot. Then she asked, “And I suppose you don't know where Mother went?”

Mrs. Taft smiled at her and said, “Why, no, I don't really know where she went. She only told me she wanted to go downtown, and I certainly didn't ask what for. And, by the way, I thought you and Joe were so bent on searching the rest of the house. Why aren't you at it?”

Mandie sighed and said, “Because the next place we need to search is the cellar, and since it's all dirty down there, we're waiting until after we eat at noon. We've finished everything else except the main floor of the house.”

“And you haven't found anything,” Mrs. Taft reminded her. “And I don't much believe you will, because whoever stole that will must have taken it with them out of this house. Or they could have just destroyed it.”

“Maybe they were afraid to destroy a legal document,” Joe said from the doorway. “They would really get into trouble doing that.”

“I suppose so, but then someone would have to prove they destroyed it,” Mrs. Taft told him. “Now, if y'all don't mind, I'd like to get my letters finished so Mr. Bond can mail them for me when he comes back.”

“When he comes back from where, Grandmother? Where has he gone?” Mandie quickly asked.

“Why, your uncle John sent him to Asheville early this morning with information about the conference at the courthouse yesterday for John's lawyer, Ed Wilson, dear,” Mrs. Taft replied. “And I told you I telegraphed my lawyer, too. We may need both of them before this thing is resolved.”

Mandie realized that was possible and also that her grandmother wanted to finish writing her letters. “I'll see you downstairs when we eat,” she said, going out the door and joining Joe in the hallway.

“Snowball needs some fresh air,” Mandie told Joe. “I'll get him and meet you on the front porch.” She went on down the hallway toward her room.

“All right,” Joe called back as he went in the opposite direction to go down the stairs.

Mandie rushed to her room, picked up Snowball, got his leash from the bureau, and carried him down to the front porch where Joe was waiting in the swing. Sitting down beside Joe, she fastened the leash to Snowball's collar and set him down.

“Why are you putting his leash on? He always runs free when he's home,” Joe said.

“Well, I just don't want him running off somewhere, because I would have to go find him, and I might miss Uncle John and Uncle Ned when they come back,” Mandie said as she held on to the end of the leash.

Snowball didn't like the leash at all and tried to pull away from her. Now and then he looked up at her. And when Mandie gave the swing a slight push to get it moving, he began growling.

“All right, you win, Snowball,” Mandie told him as she bent down and removed his leash. “But you'd better not run off.”

Snowball looked at her, and his ears moved as he shook his head and rushed out into the front yard. As Mandie and Joe watched, he disappeared around the corner of the house.

Joe laughed and said, “He probably went to the back door because he could smell dinner cooking.”

“Yes, and Aunt Lou spoils him. I caught her feeding him while she was cooking one day. She said he didn't have to wait and eat scraps after we finished,” Mandie said with a smile.

Mandie and Joe sat in the swing and discussed the mystery surrounding the missing will. She was anxious to finish searching the house. Joe was only going along with her and was not in a hurry.

“We need to get finished before your father comes for you,” Mandie reminded him.

“We don't know exactly what day he'll be here,” Joe reminded her. “But, on the other hand, we might as well go ahead and search the rest of the house.”

“We really should have gone downtown and looked for Etta and Zack Hughes,” Mandie said as she pushed the swing. “We didn't even get to tell Uncle John about seeing them, because he was already gone by the time we looked for him.”

“If, or I should say when, you get your father's house, what do you plan on doing with it?” Joe asked.

“Do with it?” Mandie asked in astonishment. “Keep it, of course.”

“But you can't live in it out there by yourself,” Joe reminded her.

“I'll just keep it locked up and visit there once in a while,” Mandie said.

“Oh, Mandie, you are not being realistic. The yard and the land will need taking care of,” Joe told her.

“I realize that,” Mandie replied. “I'll find someone to do that for me.”

“Don't look at me. I'm not going to be responsible for the place,” Joe quickly told her.

Mandie frowned as she looked at him and said, “Yes, and I know why. You can't get used to the idea that I don't have to wait until I grow up and marry you to get my father's house back.”

Joe quickly reached for Mandie's hand and held it tight. “Mandie, please, let's don't say harsh words to each other about this. Of course I was upset when we found the will giving you the house, because I wanted to get it back for you myself. I knew how much you wanted it, and you just can't imagine how much I wanted to get it for you. But you will have the house soon, and that settles that.” He looked into her blue eyes and added, “Maybe there will be something else I can do for you someday.”

Mandie quickly covered his hand with her free hand and said, “Joe, I am sorry. Please forgive me. I will try my best to behave better. And
you don't have to do anything else for me. Just be my friend. That's more important than anything else.”

“And I want you to be my friend, too, with maybe a deeper relationship when we grow up,” Joe said.

They were both startled by Mrs. Taft's voice as she came out onto the front porch. “I believe it's about time to eat,” she was saying as she walked over to a rocking chair and sat down. “Has anyone returned yet—your mother, or Uncle John, or Uncle Ned, or Mr. Bond?”

“No, ma'am, Grandmother,” Mandie replied as she quickly withdrew her hands from Joe's and sat up. “Nobody has come home yet.”

At that moment Aunt Lou came to the front door, looked out, and said, “De food ready to serve, Miz Taft. Whut we gwine do 'bout nobody home yet?”

Mrs. Taft looked at her and said, “Would it be possible for you to keep everything warm for just a little while longer? Maybe they'll all be back soon.”

“Don't wanna wait too long. Food won't be fittin' to eat,” the big woman replied as she turned back into the hallway.