The Mandie Collection (7 page)

Joe and Mandie glanced out the window at the haze of snow clouds.

“Could we go find one as soon as we eat dinner, Mr. Jason?” Mandie asked.

“That's what I was going to suggest,” Mr. Bond replied.

Just then Liza appeared in the doorway and said, “Aunt Lou, she say ev'rybody git to de dinin' room fast. Dinner be on de table. Quick now!”

“We're coming,” Mandie said. She turned to Joe. “We'd better hurry if we're going to get a tree.”

Joe didn't move. “I'm not going with you to find a tree unless you promise not to mention a word about that stupid surprise,” he said.

Mr. Bond looked at Joe, then at Mandie.

Mandie finally spoke. “All right, I promise. What else can I do?”

Joe grinned at Jason Bond. “Let's go eat, Mr. Jason,” he said. “I think I know a good place to find a tree.”

Mandie followed them into the dining room as her thoughts raced. She had tried every way she knew to find out what her mother had in store for her, but she still didn't know what it was. Joe had said she wouldn't like it.
What on earth could Mother have to tell me that I won't like
? she wondered.

Mandie wished her mother would hurry home.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT SNOWED AND SNOWED!

Everyone hurried through dinner, knowing the snowstorm would hit soon.

Mrs. Taft excused Mandie and Joe while she finished her coffee. “You may go now, but get your coats and wait for Mr. Bond in the hallway,” she said.

When Mandie and Joe got up from the table, Hilda started to follow.

“No, Hilda, you stay here with me,” Mrs. Taft said, grabbing the girl's hand.

“We could take her with us,” Mandie offered.

“No, she runs away too often,” Grandmother Taft replied. “And with a storm coming, I don't want her to get lost.” She patted Hilda's hand. “You stay with me. We'll have some chocolate pie.”

Hilda smiled at Mrs. Taft and sat back down as Joe and Mandie left the room.

“Guess I'd better hurry,” Mandie said, rushing up the steps to get her coat and hat.

“Me, too,” Joe said. Taking the steps two at a time, he walked briskly to the room he was occupying down the hall from Mandie's. Just as Mandie was about to enter her room, he stuck his head back out the door. “And don't bring that white cat,” he said.

Mandie sighed angrily. “I'm not going to bring Snowball. You don't have to worry about that.”

“Good,” Joe said. “He's always running off somewhere, and we don't have time to hunt him.”

“I said all right.” Mandie stomped into her room and shut the door.
Why does Joe always have to be so bossy
? she thought to herself. She had better sense than to take Snowball out in the woods in this cold weather with snow fixing to fall.
Oh, I wish Uncle Ned would come. He could help us find a good Christmas tree. But I suppose he's at home in Deep Creek with other things to do
. Uncle Ned was an old Cherokee friend of her father's. When Jim Shaw died he had promised to watch over Mandie. He kept his promise. The Indian was old but he was still strong, active and alert.

Joe tapped on her door. “I'm ready,” he called.

Mandie grabbed her heavy winter coat and hat, snatched up a scarf and a pair of wool gloves and hurried downstairs.

Mr. Bond met them in the hallway, dressed for the outdoors and carrying an axe. “Abraham has the wagon hitched up outside,” he said. “I'd suggest going out to Mr. Shaw's land near the boardinghouse to look for a tree.”

“You mean where Dr. Plumbley used to live?” Mandie replied. “That's a good idea.”

As the wagon neared the woods where Mandie and her friends had searched for hidden treasure the last time Mandie was home, Mr. Bond slowed the horse. He turned to Mandie and Joe. “Suppose we leave the wagon here and walk through the trees there and see what we can find,” he said.

“Fine,” Mandie agreed.

“This is the very place I had in mind,” Joe said, helping Mandie from the wagon.

As they tramped through the cold woods, they saw lots of small evergreens that would have made fine Christmas trees, but Mandie was determined to find a tree tall enough to touch the twelve-foot ceiling in the house.

“After all,” she said, “this is my very first Christmas with my mother, and I want it to be special.”

After walking along for some time in silence, Joe pointed ahead and cried, “Hey, how about that one?”

“Just what we need!” Mandie exclaimed, hurrying with the others toward it.

Mr. Bond took his axe and began swinging at the trunk of the tree. “Stand back now,” he warned.

Mandie and Joe moved away from him. Every time Mr. Bond hit a lick at the tree there seemed to be an echo. At first Mandie didn't pay much attention to it. But then Mr. Bond missed a lick, and they still heard it.

Mandie looked at Joe. “Does it sound to you like someone else is chopping down a tree or something?”

Joe nodded. “I've been listening. I think there's someone else around here doing something.”

Mr. Bond looked up. “Probably somebody after a Christmas tree,” he said.

“But this is my Uncle John's land,” Mandie protested.

“He never bothers about other people coming in here and getting a tree now and then,” Mr. Bond said, resuming his chopping.

The echo sounded again. Then suddenly there was a loud crash nearby. Mandie and Joe looked at each other and ran off in the direction of the crash. Mr. Bond followed.

As they hurried through the trees, Mandie caught a glimpse of something moving. “What's that?” she cried.

“Stop or we'll shoot!” Joe yelled, even though none of them had a gun.

The noise stopped.

As the young people broke through the trees, they came face-to-face with a man and woman all bundled up with heavy coats, hats, and scarves. They were pulling at a small, freshly cut tree.

“Who are you?” Joe demanded.

“Don't shoot!” the man cried.

And as he spoke, Mandie recognized them. It was Jake and Ludie Burns, who lived in a tenant house on John Shaw's property.

The woman squinted at the young people. “Well, if'n it ain't John Shaw's niece!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, I'm glad to see you, Mrs. and Mr. Burns,” Mandie said, rushing forward to embrace the old woman.

Joe shook hands with Mr. Burns. “Imagine finding you here,” he said.

Mr. Bond greeted the couple, then said, “I told these young people that Mr. Shaw allowed other people to get Christmas trees off his property now and then—”

“We got permission yestiddy to cut a tree,” Jake Burns explained.

“You'ns will hafta come see our house whilst you're home fer Christmas,” Ludie Burns said. “We's got it all fixed up airtight and real purty, if I do say so.”

“We'll come see it,” Mandie promised. “Do you have any decorations for your tree?”

“We been amakin' some li'l doo-dads that oughta be 'nuff to make it look purty,” Mrs. Burns replied.

“We'll bring you some things from Uncle John's attic,” Mandie offered. “I know he has lots and lots of Christmas decorations up there. Remember when we got the furniture out of there for y'all's house? Well, we found all kinds of things up there then.”

Joe laughed. “I'd say. There must be fifty years' worth of decorations up there.”

Mr. Bond looked up at the sky through the bare trees. “I'm sure I felt a snowflake,” he said. “We'd better be getting that tree cut.”

Mandie looked all around and then at the Burnses. “How did you get here?” she asked.

“Oh, we got a wagon now, thanks to your uncle,” Mr. Burns said. “It's back there on that side road.” He indicated another side of the woods.

Mandie followed Joe and Mr. Bond as they started back toward the tree they were cutting. “We'll come see you tomorrow with the decorations,” she called back to the old couple.

Mr. Bond stopped and turned around. “I don't know about that,” he said. “If that storm is as bad as I expect, you won't be able to get that far.”

“Why don't y'all just come on by the house now, and we'll give you some decorations?” Mandie said.

The old people agreed.

With Joe's help, Mr. Bond finished cutting down the tree and put it in the wagon. By that time the snow was falling fast and thick.

“Looks like you were right about the snow, Mr. Jason.” Mandie sighed. “I hope my mother and Uncle John get back all right.”

As they loaded the tree into the wagon, Jason Bond looked at the sky. “I doubt that they'll be coming home tonight,” he said. “The snow is coming from that direction over there, and that's where they've gone.”

Mandie groaned. After hopping into the wagon, she wrapped her scarf around her face, leaving only enough room to see out. The snow was icy, and she felt as if her face was freezing.

When they got back to the house, they found the place in a turmoil. Both Hilda and Snowball were missing! Mrs. Taft had thought that Hilda was asleep. The girl had lain down on her bed for a nap, and when Mrs. Taft checked on her, she seemed to be fast asleep.

No one had seen Snowball in quite a while, either. Liza had fed him in the kitchen and left him there after the dinner was cleared away.

Mrs. Taft paced up and down in the entrance hallway. “I just don't know what to do about that girl,” she said. “If she went outdoors she didn't put on her coat. The blanket from her bed is missing, though. I keep thinking she will get over all this running-away business, but I just don't know.”

Mr. Bond took charge. “Has the house been searched?” he asked.

“No, not all over,” Mrs. Taft replied. “We mostly opened doors to the rooms and glanced inside. We just missed her a few minutes ago. And then Liza said she couldn't find Snowball, either.”

Mandie removed her coat and hung it on the hall tree. “Hilda probably took Snowball with her wherever she went.”

Joe and Mr. Bond hung their coats on the hall tree as well.

“Why don't we work our way upstairs all the way to the attic and then down again if necessary,” Mandie suggested.

Just then Liza came into the hallway, and Joe immediately enlisted her help.

“Want me to get Aunt Lou, too?” Liza asked.

Mrs. Taft spoke up. “No, that won't be necessary,” she said. “She's like I am—a little too old to go running up and down three flights of steps.”

Again Mr. Bond took charge. “We should look in every room, behind all the doors, under the beds and any other place large enough to hide under,” he told the young people.

Mandie knew this would be no small task. The three-story house also had an attic that would need to be checked. Each floor had a center
hallway plus a cross hallway, and so many rooms that Mandie didn't even know how many there were.

The search party began in the parlor and then split up, with Mandie and Liza going one direction, while Joe and Mr. Bond went another.

Many of the rooms had not been occupied in years. As the doors were opened, the hinges creaked, and a musty odor filled the air.

In one of the rooms, Mandie batted at a large cobweb in disgust. “What this house needs is a good cleaning,” she told Liza.

“Mr. Shaw say don't bother de rooms that ain't used 'cept when extra comp'ny comes,” Liza defended herself. “And it take whole lot of comp'ny to fill up dis house, maybe a hunnerd people.”

“I suppose so,” Mandie said, looking under a high four-poster bed in an unoccupied room. “It'd take twenty maids to keep this place clean all the time. I don't see why my great-grandfather built such a big house.”

“But Aunt Lou say dere used to be lots of Shaws,” Liza replied. “Now de only Shaw living is Mr. John Shaw, 'cept you. And when you git married to dat doctuh boy, your name won't be Shaw no more.”

Mandie blushed in spite of herself and turned to pull the door shut as she and Liza left the room. “Liza, you know I'm nowhere near old enough to talk about getting married,” Mandie said. “Now keep your mind on what we're doing.”

Liza grinned. “When de time come, you gwine to marry dat doctor boy. Jes' you wait and see.”

Mandie led the way to the next room. “You must think you're a fortuneteller or something,” she grumbled. “Come on. We've got to hurry and find Hilda and Snowball. If we can't find them in here, we'll have to look outside. And if they're out there, they might freeze to death. Every second counts.”

Joe and Mr. Bond arrived at the stairs to the attic just before the girls. Walking ahead, they opened the attic door. Mandie and Liza were right behind them. Suddenly something white and furry swept past their legs from inside the attic. Everyone was startled.

Mandie whirled around. “Snowball!” she exclaimed. There at the bottom of the steps stood the white kitten, looking at them. Mandie turned back to the others. “Hilda must have brought him up here,” she said. “Maybe she's here, too.”

As they entered the attic, Mandie squinted in the dim light. The small windows gave little light since it was snowing outside.

“I'll get the lamp from the hall table downstairs,” Joe volunteered. He ran down to get it and quickly returned.

Mr. Bond took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the lamp. As he held the lamp high, the others followed him around the attic between discarded furniture, old trunks, boxes, and odds and ends that had accumulated over the years.

“Nobody here,” Jason Bond announced as they arrived back at the doorway.

Joe scratched his head. “But how did Snowball get in here?” he asked. “Liza, do you know if anybody has been up here today for any reason?”

“No, no, no!” Liza exclaimed. “Ain't nobody ever come up heah. Too spooky.”

Mr. Bond headed downstairs. “I suppose Hilda has gone outside,” he said, “so we might as well get our coats back on.”