The Mandie Collection (24 page)

“We will remain here until you return,” Miss Prudence replied.

When Mandie pushed open the door to her room she couldn’t believe what she saw. Her graduation dress was spread out on the bed.

“Celia, this is crazy,” she exclaimed, going to touch the dress.

“I’m going to get Miss Prudence. I’ll be right back,” Celia said, going out the door.

“I’m going in the bathroom to wash my face,” Mandie told her.

As Mandie started toward the door on the other side of the room, she heard someone sneeze. She froze in her tracks and looked around. There was no one in sight. She held her breath, waiting to see if someone was coming into the room. Then she noticed the bed skirt moving. She raced across the room, jerked up the bed skirt, and came face-to-face with April Snow, who was quickly scrambling out from under the bed.

And at that moment, Miss Prudence appeared in the doorway, followed by Celia, Aunt Phoebe, and Uncle Cal.

The schoolmistress stood there in shock as she saw April Snow crawl out from under the bed and stand up.

“Just what do you think you are doing?” Miss Prudence actually screamed at the girl.

“My dress,” Mandie quickly told Miss Prudence and pointed to it on the bed. “She had my dress.”

“The wardrobe was locked. How did you get it out?” Miss Prudence asked.

April Snow, with a smirk on her face, pulled a key out of her pocket, held it up, and said, “The key to my wardrobe. All the wardrobes have the same lock.”

“April Snow, you are expelled from this school here and now. Go to your room until your parents can come and get you,” Miss Prudence told her.

April circled around everyone and edged out of the door backward without a word.

“I’m sorry, Amanda,” Miss Prudence told her.

“That’s all right, Miss Prudence. It wasn’t your fault.” Mandie replied.

After that incident things got back to normal at the school, and the next week the graduation was held without a hitch.

Mandie, dressed in her beautiful dress that Aunt Lou had made, floated up to the podium to receive that piece of paper that said she had graduated, with honors, from the Misses Heathwood’s School for Girls.

There was a roaring applause as her friends and relatives clapped and congratulated her.

Joe Woodard was the first to reach Mandie as the ceremony ended. “You know, Amanda Elizabeth Shaw, I’m right proud of you,” he teased with a big grin.

“No prouder than I am,” Elizabeth Shaw was close behind him.

Then Mandie turned and saw Uncle Ned standing at the edge of the crowd. She quickly hugged her mother and ran to the old Indian.

Uncle Ned reached for her hand, squeezed it, and said, “Jim Shaw in Happy Hunting Ground proud of you, Papoose.”

Mandie tiptoed and kissed his old leathery cheek. “I’m proud to have you for my friend, Uncle Ned.”

Mrs. Taft held a large dinner party that night and Mandie celebrated with all her friends.

Afterward Mrs. Taft caught her long enough to say, “Now we must get ready for our trip to Europe. That will put the topping on this great event today. I’m proud of you, dear, and I love you.” She quickly gave Mandie a squeeze and moved on among her guests.

Mandie was so excited she knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink that night.

After much discussion with Mandie’s grandmother, mother, and Uncle John, it was decided that Mandie would go home with her mother and uncle for a few days and would come back to her grandmother’s house with them the first of June, when they would be traveling to New York.

Celia, her mother, and her aunt said good-bye, with plans to meet them in New York.

“Everyone is on their own to arrive in New York at Lindall Guyer’s house in time to sail on Sunday, June the fifth,” Mrs. Taft informed the whole crowd of people at her house.

“We’ll be there,” Dr. Woodard said.

“So will we,” Jane Hamilton added.

“And, Mother, Mandie will be coming back with John and me to your house to travel on the train with you to New York,” Elizabeth Shaw said.

“Everyone, thank you for everything,” Mandie said at the top of her voice in order to be heard over the din of many voices as everyone stood at Mrs. Taft’s front door, ready to leave.

Mandie looked at her friend Celia and said, “I suppose it was April Snow moving our things on the bureau, don’t you think?” Mandie said.

“Yes, I believe it was her, but thank goodness we are finished with that school and all its mysteries,” Celia said. “Mandie, please, let’s not go looking for any mysteries at the College of Charleston.”

“But Celia, I don’t go looking for mysteries. They come looking for me,” Mandie said with a laugh.

“Everyone who believes that, stand on his head,” Joe said with a loud laugh behind them.

“Joe Woodard, I’m not going to speak to you on the train all the way to Franklin if you’re going to talk that way,” Mandie said with a frown, pretending to be serious.

“Well, since you girls are going to Charleston, and that’s a long way from where I go in New Orleans, I won’t have to worry about getting involved,” Joe continued teasing.

“Amanda,” Elizabeth Shaw called to her. “We’re ready to go to the depot.”

“I sure don’t want to be left,” Joe said, quickly following the crowd out the door.

In Franklin the Shaws went to their house and Dr. Woodard, his wife, and Joe traveled by the buggy they had left there, over the mountain to their home at Charley Gap.

When everyone had gone their way, Mandie felt lost. She went to her room, lay down across the bed, and began talking to Snowball, who somehow managed to sleep in the middle of it all the time.

“Snowball, I feel lost,” she said as tears came into her blue eyes. “I don’t like changes. Now I have to go make new friends at school in a strange place.” She rolled over on her back, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Oh, Daddy, how I wish you were here. I love you.” She broke into sobs, and it was a long time before she finally sat up and went to wash her face. She had made a very important decision and she had to talk to her mother and Uncle John.

She found them in the parlor. Going straight across the room to her mother, she sat down on a footstool between her mother and John Shaw’s chair.

“Mother, I want to go to see my father,” she said in a shaky voice.

“What?” Elizabeth said in surprise.

“I think I know what you mean, Amanda,” John Shaw said.

“All this graduation celebration should have included him,” Mandie said in a shaky voice. “But on the other hand, if he had lived I would not have been going to Miss Prudence’s school.”

“I understand, Amanda,” Elizabeth said, reaching to hold her hand. “You want to visit Charley Gap.”

“Yes, Mother, I want to go before we sail to Europe,” Mandie replied.

“Then we will go,” John Shaw said. “Suppose we leave early in the morning. We can stay with the Woodards. They’ll be home.”

Mandie nodded. She didn’t trust her voice not to break. She swallowed hard and whispered, “Thank you.”

———

Mandie was ready before daylight the next morning. She came downstairs and found Aunt Lou and Liza already in the kitchen preparing breakfast. John and Elizabeth came into the room right after her and they all sat in the kitchen and had their morning meal.

Aunt Lou kept glancing at Mandie and finally she put her hands on her broad hips and said, “I sho’ is proud of my chile. In all dis heah time of celebration she don’t forgit her papa. Jes’ don’t stay too long at Charley Gap ’cause we’se got to git dem clothes ready for dat trip on dat big boat, you heah?”

Mandie jumped up and hugged the old woman. “I love you, Aunt Lou,” she said.

“Now let me git some food ready for dat trip over de mountain,” the old woman said.

When they left it was barely daylight because the sun was hidden by the mountain. Mandie held Snowball in her lap where she sat in the back of the wagon.

Much later, when they arrived at the Woodards’ house, they found all of them at home. And Dr. and Mrs. Woodard were surprised to see them.

“This is a nice surprise,” Dr. Woodard told them as he came outside when the wagon came to a stop at the back door.

But Joe was not surprised. He was right behind his father, and he helped Mandie jump down from the wagon as she held on to Snowball. He held her hand for a long moment and looked into her blue eyes. “This is not a surprise to me. I knew you would want to come home to Charley Gap before we sail,” he said.

“You always understand things, Joe,” Mandie said with a little smile for him. “As soon as we get freshened up, do you think you might want to go with me over to my father’s house?”

“Of course, Mandie,” Joe replied, still holding her hand.

Mandie pulled away and said, “Then I’d better wash my face and hands after that long trip through the woods in the mountains.”

The adults went to sit in the parlor while Mrs. Miller, who worked for the Woodards, served coffee. Mandie looked at her mother and said, “May I go now?” She glanced at John Shaw, who started to rise from his seat. “Joe is going with me, Uncle John. We won’t be gone long.”

Mandie carried Snowball and walked with Joe down the road between his house and Mandie’s father’s house, and circled by Mr. Tallant’s school. They had grown up together doing this. The territory was familiar in every way to Mandie.

As they neared her father’s house, Mandie stopped and said, “I didn’t let Mr. Jacob know I was coming. It doesn’t look like he’s at home. Do you think he would mind if we walked around the house and just looked around?”

“No, I’m sure he wouldn’t. Although he lives here now, the house still belongs to you, and he was such a dear friend of your father’s he’s going to be sorry he missed you,” Joe replied.

They turned down the lane to the house and walked beneath the huge chestnut trees where Mandie had played as a young child. She glanced at the long split-rail fence that her father had been working on when he died and which Mr. Jacob had finished for her later.

Mandie turned away from Joe as tears filled her blue eyes. Joe quickly put an arm around her shoulders and said, “Now, Mandie, we haven’t been up to the cemetery yet.”

“I know. Let’s go,” she said, wiping the tears from her face with her handkerchief. Snowball clung to her shoulder.

They climbed the road up the mountain to the cemetery where her father had been buried, which seemed so many years ago.

As they came into the opening, Joe led the way to the mound with the granite tombstone John Shaw had placed there for his brother. Mandie read the inscription, “James Alexander Shaw, born April 3, 1863, died April 13, 1900.” She broke into sobs and fell to her knees. Joe reached to grab Snowball as he tried to escape and he put his other arm around Mandie’s shoulders as he knelt beside her.

“I love you, Daddy, I love you,” Mandie cried out. She took a deep breath then and, looking up at the sky, she said, “Dear God, please forgive me. I was so angry with you for taking my father that day. Please forgive me.”

Uncle Ned appeared out of the trees and came to kneel on the other side of Mandie. “Big God, He knows everything, Papoose. He knows you were sad that day. He forgive you.”

Mandie reached her hand to clasp Uncle Ned’s, “I understand now, Uncle Ned. But my father was the only one I had in this world who loved me back then and I was angry because I was so scared.” She sobbed loudly.

“You afraid now because you going to strange school far away from home,” Uncle Ned said. “You know verse.”

“Yes,” Mandie said, joining hands with Joe on one side and Uncle Ned on the other side, and together they repeated Mandie’s special verse, “What time I am afraid, I trust in Thee.”

Mandie fell silent and in a moment she sat back on the grass and looked at her two friends.

“Uncle Ned, you promised my father you would look after me and you always have. I don’t know what I would have done without you all this time since—since I lost him. I love you.” She squeezed his hand.

Turning to Joe, she said, “And, Joe, you are always there for me. I love you, too.” She squeezed his hand.

“You are my life, Mandie,” Joe said softly as he held on to the white cat.

As Snowball loudly protested, Mandie smiled and looked at him as she said, “Snowball, that is where you were born, in the big barn down by my father’s house. I took you with me when I ran away.” She reached to smooth the white fur on his head as he looked questioningly at her.

Mandie stood up on wobbly legs and looked at her friends as she said, “I suppose we’d better go now.”

“Yes, everyone might wonder where we went,” Joe said.

“We go to father’s house first,” Uncle Ned said, leading the way down the mountain.

As they got to the bottom of the narrow road, Mandie saw a horse tethered by the barn. Mr. Jacob Smith had come home.

He was in the yard and came to meet them.

“I’m so glad to see you, little lady,” he told Mandie. “I’m glad I came home before you left.”

Mandie squeezed his big hand and said, “I was hoping I would see you. You see, a whole crowd of us are sailing all the way to Europe with my grandmother the fifth of June and we will be gone a few weeks. And when we return I have to go to Charleston, South Carolina, to college, so I don’t know when I will have time to come back and visit here.”

“I’m glad you are having a wonderful trip like that, Missy,” Mr. Jacob replied. “Just don’t forget to come back home to the United States.”

Mandie laughed and said, “No way I’d ever give up my country.”

“Have y’all got time for a cup of tea?” Mr. Smith asked, looking at Mandie, Uncle Ned, and Joe.

“We will take time,” Mandie said.

When he led them into the house, Mandie was again overcome with memories. Memories of her father getting up first every morning, preparing breakfast, making biscuits, and the aroma of the wonderful coffee he made.

Mandie and her sister, Irene, had shared a room up in the loft. Mandie glanced at the ladder leading up there that she had gone up and down so many times.

“Have seats here,” Mr. Smith told them, indicating the huge table where Mandie had eaten with her father.

As they sat down and Mr. Smith put water on the cookstove to boil, Mandie could see her father sitting here with her. They were always up before Mandie’s mother and sister. She shouldn’t think of that woman as her mother, she suddenly realized. She was a stepmother. And Uncle Ned had helped her find her real mother when her father died.

She set Snowball down and he raced for the woodbox behind the stove, although it was summertime. There was something about woodboxes that fascinated the cat. She remembered him trying to climb into the box when he was too small to reach it.

Mandie enjoyed her visit with Mr. Jacob Smith, who had been one of her father’s best friends. She had asked him to move into the house and keep things going when she had unraveled the mystery of her family and she was no longer living there.

Finally Joe reminded her that they should return to his house or everyone might be worried about them being gone so long. Besides, he believed it was about time to eat.

Mandie smiled at him and said, “And I’ll wager Mrs. Miller has baked a chocolate cake for you.”

“Well, now, how did you know?” Joe teased.

When they got back to the Woodards’ house there was a wonderful odor of cooked food, and Mandie suddenly realized she was starving. She set Snowball in the woodbox and Mrs. Miller promised not to let him outside while everyone ate in the dining room.

Mandie smiled across the table at her mother and Uncle John and said, “I’m ready to go to Europe now.”

Elizabeth smiled back and said, “I’m glad, dear.”

John said, “So am I.”

They returned home to Franklin and plans were made. Uncle Ned, Morning Star, Sallie, and Dimar would be leaving with them on the train for New York in a few days. The Woodards would travel up the next day because Dr. Woodard had patients he had to see before he left. During his leave he had asked the new doctor at Bryson City to look in on his patients.

Liza stood by, waiting on the table as everyone ate and listening to their plans. She received the shock of her life when Mandie suddenly looked at her and then turned to her mother and said, “Mother, would it be possible to take Liza with us to Europe?”

Everyone fell silent and looked at Mandie and then at Elizabeth.

After recovering from the surprise, Elizabeth said, “Why, Amanda, that is a wonderful idea, dear. Yes, we should take Liza with us.”

“Who now!” Aunt Lou spoke up from over at the sideboard. “Dat girl ain’t got no bidness in dat foreign country, wid all dem foreign people.”

Everyone laughed. Liza stood there speechless and too surprised to move.

“But Aunt Lou, Liza could be very helpful to us, especially with Amanda taking that cat along,” Elizabeth said. “Yes, I think Liza should go with us.” Looking at Mandie she added, “We’ll have to hurry and get her some clothes, Amanda.”

“Mother, we are the same size except she is a little taller than I am, and I don’t need all those clothes we bought in New York. If Aunt Lou could let out some of the hems they would fit just fine,” Mandie replied.

“Lawsy mercy, temptin’ dat girl with fine clothes. What is dis heah world comin’ to? I won’t ever be able to control her when she comes back,” Aunt Lou said, slamming the lid down on a dish at the sideboard.