Mandie Collection, The: 8 (19 page)

Mandie laughed out loud. “Oh, Joe! I’m talking about girls at your college, but if you don’t want to tell me, then what about the boys? Are there any handsome boys in your classes?”

“I suppose you would call some of them handsome,” Joe said with a grin. “But I don’t intend introducing you to them to see what you think.”

“But if I come down to visit you, I can see for myself,” Mandie reminded him.

Joe became solemn as he looked at Mandie and said, “Yes, you could see for yourself. But I hope you don’t ever meet another fellow that you get too interested in, because I’m reminding you right here and now that I am still planning on marrying you when we finish growing up, Mandie Shaw.”

Mandie felt herself blush, and she wouldn’t meet Joe’s brown eyes as he looked at her. What was this strange feeling she was having that made her feel so shy around her old friend Joe? She didn’t understand what had gotten into her.

“That’s a long time in the future, when we have grown up, that is,” Mandie reminded him. She cleared her throat and asked, “Now, when are we going to see Sallie?”

“I suppose we’d better go tomorrow morning, since you don’t have long to stay here,” Joe replied. “But it won’t do you any good to change the subject, Mandie Shaw, because in no time flat we’ll be all grown up one of these days.”

Mandie glanced at the adults, who were carrying on their own conversation. She was afraid one of them might have overheard Joe’s conversation with her. But if they had, no one showed it.

Mandie changed the subject. “I suppose one of these days my mother will pick out a college somewhere for me to go to in a couple of years,” she said.

“Come to mine. We’d have two years there to track down all those mysteries in New Orleans, and it is a very mysterious place, very interesting and very old,” Joe said. “There’s no telling what kind of a mystery we might run across.”

“But it’s also very far away from my home,” Mandie reminded him.

“Any college you go to will be a long way from home,” Joe reminded her. “Just hope your mother doesn’t pick one way up north someplace, like New York. That place is too big, and there are too many people there.”

“I imagine I’ll have a little say-so about where I’m going to college,” Mandie told him. “Uncle John would help me out on that with Mother.”

“I know,” Joe teased. “Your uncle has you spoiled rotten.”

Mandie quickly said, “I’m no more rotten than you are, Joe Woodard!” She felt her old, comfortable friendship with Joe returning as the shyness went away.

At that moment Mrs. Miller, who worked for the Woodards and lived with her husband in a cabin on the Woodard property, came to the parlor doorway. Mrs. Woodard saw her and asked, “You have everything on the table?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Miller told her. “All ready to eat.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Miller. We’ll be right in,” Mrs. Woodard replied.

Mrs. Miller went back down the hallway. Mrs. Woodard rose and
said, “I imagine everyone is hungry now. And we have plenty of food on the table. So let’s move on into the dining room.”

“I’m not rotten,” Joe said under his breath as everyone went into the hallway. He grinned down at Mandie.

“We will continue this conversation later,” Mandie promised as they followed the adults into the dining room and were seated at the table next to each other.

John Shaw spoke from down the other side of the table, “Amanda, I will be leaving early in the morning, probably before you get up, but please remember I will be back for you most likely on Wednesday, or Thursday at the latest.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll remember,” Mandie promised. “Will you be staying in Asheville until then?”

“Your grandmother has graciously invited me to stay at her house while I attend to my business there, so, yes, I’ll be in Asheville. My lawyer is there, and I’ll be spending some time with him, going over legal transactions and such,” John Shaw explained. “But you just be sure you are here when I return. I don’t want to have to run all over the countryside looking for you.” He smiled at her.

“I’ll be here, Uncle John,” Mandie promised.

Joe looked at Mandie, grinned, and said, “I won’t let her run off somewhere chasing a mystery.”

“That’s impossible, because you always go along on the mystery with me when I find one,” Mandie reminded him with a big smile.

“In that case we’d better see that you and Miss Amanda are both here,” Dr. Woodard told his son.

“And Snowball,” Mrs. Woodard added. “Y’all know how he likes to run away.”

“And Snowball,” John Shaw agreed.

As the adults became engaged in their own conversation, Mandie whispered to Joe, “Do you suppose it’s all right if we go see Sallie? That’s a long way off.”

“Oh sure,” Joe said. “I’ll let my mother know in the morning where we are going. I don’t think your uncle expects you to just sit here and not do anything.”

“All right, if you say so,” Mandie replied. She had not seen Sallie, or Sallie’s grandfather, Uncle Ned, the old Cherokee friend of Mandie’s father, since the Christmas holidays, and she was anxious to get caught
up on all the news. She would also like to see her father’s house down the road from the Woodards’, where she had lived until her father died there. “Joe, do you think we could stop by my father’s house?”

“Of course, Mandie,” Joe replied. “You know Mr. Jacob Smith has moved in, like you asked him to, and he is taking care of the place. I’m sure he will be glad to see you.”

“And I’ll be glad to see him,” Mandie replied as her thoughts turned back to the time when her father was living. She missed him so much.

CHAPTER THREE

A PILE OF MICA

Even though dawn was just beginning to crack the night sky when Mandie got up the next morning and went downstairs, she found out from Mrs. Miller that her uncle John was already gone. And so was Dr. Woodward, who was making some early sick calls.

“Your uncle left about fifteen minutes ago, and Dr. Woodard just this minute drove off in his buggy,” Mrs. Miller explained while she was cooking breakfast on the iron cookstove. “You just sit down over there at the table.”

“Has Joe been down yet?” Mandie asked, pulling out a chair from the table and sitting down.

“Yes, he went down to the barn with his father. I suppose he’ll be right back,” Mrs. Miller explained. She stirred a pot of grits.

“I see Snowball already has his breakfast,” Mandie said with a smile as she watched her white cat hurriedly eating from a bowl by the stove.

“Well, you know how it is. I couldn’t make the poor little cat wait for scraps from the table,” Mrs. Miller replied with a little laugh.

“Oh, that poor little cat will eat anything anytime you give it to him,” Mandie replied, smiling at the woman.

Joe came in the back door as Mandie was speaking, and he added,
“And so will this poor little boy. Mmmm! Something smells good.” He walked over to the stove to look into the pots.

“Now you just go set yourself down there at the table and I’ll bring the food,” Mrs. Miller admonished him with a spoon in her hand. “Your mother is sleeping late.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Joe replied with a smile. He pulled out a chair across the table from Mandie and sat down. He looked back across the room at Mrs. Miller and teased, “I’m sitting down at the table now and I don’t see any food.”

“If I didn’t know you better, and having changed your diapers when you were a baby, I’d say you’re just plain uppity,” Mrs. Miller answered with an effort to keep from laughing.

“And if I didn’t know how good your cooking is, I’d say you’re a pokey cook,” Joe returned, grinning.

“There now. We’re even. Nobody won,” Mrs. Miller said, bringing a platter of bacon and eggs to the table and placing it in the middle. “ ’Course, now, if you don’t want to eat my cooking, why, that’s just fine with me. Just one less to cook for.” She squeezed Joe’s shoulder as she passed him. “Now let me get the rest of the food.” She went back to the stove to ladle up grits into a bowl.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you two don’t like each other,” Mandie said, reaching for the platter. “But count me out. I’m hungry, and I want to eat so we can get going.”

“And where are y’all off to today?” Mrs. Miller asked as she brought the bowl of hot grits to the table and set it in front of them.

“Here and there,” Joe replied, helping himself to the grits. “We’re going to see Sallie, and we’re going by Mandie’s father’s house to see Mr. Jacob Smith. But we’ll be back in time for supper. I thought maybe we could take a biscuit or two to tide us over.” He smiled up at the dark-haired woman.

“A biscuit or two?” Mrs. Miller asked. She walked toward the cabinet and took down a small picnic basket. “I’ll just pack this while y’all eat.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Miller. I’m sure we will appreciate that when noontime comes,” Mandie said, eating her bacon and eggs. Looking at Joe, she asked, “Do your mother and father know where we’re going?”

“Oh yes, I told them last night, and I mentioned it again to my
father this morning,” Joe answered. He reached for a hot biscuit and buttered it.

“I wanted to be sure since Uncle John had told me not to go running off somewhere,” Mandie said. “Soon as I finish eating, I’ll get my shawl and be ready to go.”

“And you’d better take a jacket, Joe,” Mrs. Miller told him. She was quickly splitting open biscuits and inserting sausage patties in them as she wrapped them in a napkin. “I know it will be warming up later in the day, but it’s downright chilly this morning.”

“Yes, ma’am, I agree,” Joe said, hurrying to eat everything on his plate. Looking across the room at Mrs. Miller, he asked, “Could we please have some of that chocolate cake we had left from supper last night? It’s not warm enough to melt it in the basket.”

“Oh, Joe, you think of everything,” Mandie said with a big smile.

“I’ll put two large slices in the basket,” Mrs. Miller replied, still piling up food to give them.

“We’re going to have a picnic,” Mandie said, happily watching the woman. “It’s going to be a great day, a better day than I’ve had in a long time.”

Joe looked at her and smiled. She felt herself blush and dropped her gaze. Hastily finishing her meal, she hurried to get her shawl. All the time she was thinking that it had been an awfully long time since she and Joe had had a picnic. And it would probably be a long time before they could get together again and have another one, especially if Joe had to stay in school all summer. Maybe she and her other friends could go down to New Orleans and visit Joe at his college if he didn’t come home. But then that probably wouldn’t work out too well. Joe would be too busy studying to spend any time with them. She and Joe had been friends all her life. How could she stand it if he didn’t get home all summer and then wouldn’t have any holidays until next Christmas? That would be positively, absolutely, unbearably awful! Something was going to have to be worked out. She’d figure out some solution to the problem.

Joe was waiting for her when Mandie came back to the kitchen.

“I was thinking, maybe you’d like to ride,” Joe told her. “We have several horses now that would be tame enough for you.”

Mandie thought for a second. “It would be nice to go horseback
riding, but we couldn’t go off the road whenever we took a notion,” she replied. “If we cut through the woods down by the schoolhouse, it’s too overgrown for a horse to get through. Besides, I have to take Snowball. I’m afraid he’ll get out while I’m gone.”

“All right,” Joe agreed. “That’s fine. I need the exercise anyway. I haven’t had much time for walking.” He picked up the picnic basket from the table.

Mrs. Miller was washing the dishes. “Y’all be careful, now, going through the woods. It’s warm enough that snakes are beginning to crawl.”

Mandie looked at Joe and said, “If you’d like to take your rifle along, I could carry the basket. And I can make Snowball walk on his leash part of the way.” She stooped down to fasten the red collar and leash on Snowball.

“Good idea,” Joe said. “I just cleaned my rifle yesterday. I’ll get it.” He went into the pantry and brought it out with some extra ammunition in a small drawstring bag, the kind that smoking tobacco came in. “Now we are prepared.”

“Let’s go,” Mandie agreed, picking up the picnic basket. It was not very large and was not very heavy. She’d have no problem carrying it. Deciding to carry her white cat part of the way, she put him on her shoulder.

“Want to go by my father’s house first and see Mr. Jacob Smith?” Mandie asked as they walked up the driveway to the road.

“If that’s what you’d rather do, but I was thinking we’d find Sallie at the school if we go straight there, and then we could stop by to see Mr. Smith on our way home,” Joe suggested. He looked at her for her answer.

“You’re right,” Mandie agreed. “It would be better to try and catch Sallie at the school. Otherwise, we’ll have to go all the way to Uncle Ned’s house to look for her.”

Sallie Sweetwater was Uncle Ned’s granddaughter, and she lived with him and her grandmother, Morning Star, at Deep Creek. Mandie was one-fourth Cherokee, and she had Cherokee relatives who lived at Bird-town, which was on the way to Deep Creek.

The morning air was cool, but as they walked they warmed up and removed their wraps. Mandie set Snowball down to walk and rolled up her shawl and stuck it through the handle of the basket she was carrying.
Joe threw his jacket across his shoulder. They walked on down the dirt road, skipping over deep ruts here and there made by wagons and buggies in the winter during heavy rains. Snowball walked along with them, but now and then he tried to dart off the road in pursuit of some wild animal—a squirrel or bird—that went through the brush.

Neither one was talking much. Mandie looked up at Joe by her side and decided he must have grown six inches since she last saw him. “You are outgrowing me,” she said with a smile. “But just wait, I’ll catch up one day soon.”

Joe laughed out loud and teased, “Catch up? I hope not. Girls shouldn’t get so tall, and I don’t think you will add more than a couple of inches by the time you are grown, if that much.”

Mandie straightened up and stretched as she replied, “I hope I get a lot taller so I can look you in the eye.” She grinned at him.