Mandie Collection, The: 8 (22 page)

“Joe, let me go,” Mandie said with a laugh as she pulled her hand free. “I don’t want your mother holding up supper because of us.” She turned to go up the stairs. “I’ll get washed and beat you back to the parlor.” She ran up the steps two at a time.

Joe followed and turned down the opposite end of the hallway upstairs. “You’d better hurry, then,” he called to her.

Mandie rushed on down to the room she used when she visited the Woodards. “What a silly conversation,” she mumbled to herself. “What has got into Joe, and me, too, I suppose?” She hummed to herself as she thought about it.

She quickly went to the washstand in her room, poured water from the pitcher into the bowl, and washed her face and hands. Then she went over to the bureau, unbraided her blond hair, and brushed it out. Quickly finding a ribbon in the drawer she tied it back. “That ought to look better,” she said to herself as she looked in the mirror.

She rushed to open the door to the hallway and hesitated. “Joe is really growing up, but I don’t think I am,” she said aloud to herself as she paused with her hand on the doorknob. Then she added, “Or maybe I am and I don’t know it.” She giggled to herself and went out into the
hall. She wasn’t sure she wanted to grow up yet, but what could she do about it? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Deep in thought she went on down the stairs to join the others in the parlor.

CHAPTER FIVE

HERE WE GO AGAIN!

The next morning everyone got up early and ate breakfast together. They made their plans for the day.

“How did you get here, Uncle Ned?” Joe asked the old man. “Did you drive your wagon?”

“No, ride horse,” Uncle Ned replied, finishing his cup of coffee.

Mrs. Woodard spoke up, “Then, Joe, you should hitch up my cart for you and Amanda.”

Dr. Woodard pushed back from the table and stood up. “Yes, do that, Joe,” he said. “Now I must get going. I have to go all the way over the mountain to see about Mrs. Coleman.” He walked up behind his wife’s chair and bent to plant a kiss on her cheek with a whispered, “Love you.”

Mrs. Woodard squeezed his hand and said, “Be careful, darling.”

“Uncle Ned, nice to have seen you. Come back soon,” Dr. Woodard said as he got his coat and hat from the pegs by the back door and put them on. He took down his medical bag from the shelf above.

“Soon,” Uncle Ned agreed as he, too, rose from the table. “Must come see my house soon, too.”

“We will,” Dr. Woodard promised as he opened the back door. “You young ones don’t get into any trouble today.”

“We won’t,” Mandie and Joe said together as the doctor went out the back door.

“I think I’ll wear my cloak today,” Mandie said, pushing her chair away from the table. “I’ll get it and be right back down.”

Joe got up and went to get his coat from the pegs. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see about the cart. Meet you at the barn.”

Mandie rushed upstairs and got her cloak. By the time she got back downstairs the kitchen was empty, except for Snowball. He came to meet her with a loud meow from where he had been eating near the cookstove.

“Yes, I know you want to go, too. You always do,” Mandie said, stooping to fasten his red leash to his collar and then picking him up. “Let’s go.”

When she got to the barn, Uncle Ned had saddled his horse and Joe had the cart waiting.

“Don’t forget. We’re going by to see Mr. Jacob Smith first, aren’t we?” Mandie reminded them.

“Of course,” Joe agreed.

“Yes,” Uncle Ned said.

Mandie jumped into the cart and they started down the road to Mr. Smith’s. Uncle Ned followed. When they got there, Mandie was disappointed again. There was no sign of Mr. Smith. Joe promised they would come by again on their way home that afternoon.

Since they were riding and it wouldn’t take long to get to the place where they had seen the mica mound, they decided to go there next.

“It’s down the slope over there,” Joe called to Uncle Ned as he halted the cart and he and Mandie jumped down. She carried Snowball.

Uncle Ned dismounted and tethered his horse to a bush nearby.

Mandie walked over to look down the slope and quickly turned to Joe. “Are you sure this is where we saw the mica?” she asked.

“Yes,” Joe replied as he and Uncle Ned came to stand by Mandie. “Oh no!” he added.

“It’s gone!” Mandie exclaimed.

Uncle Ned looked around the area and asked, “Sure this place?”

“Yes, it is the right place,” Joe replied. Turning to Mandie, he said, “Remember Snowball ran down there and we went down to get him?
Remember the way we went down those rocks there?” He pointed down the slope.

“Yes, I recognize some of the rocks and bushes,” Mandie replied. “But how did that whole mound of mica disappear? And where did it go?”

“That’s what I’d like to know, too,” Joe said, frowning as he paced back and forth.

“The mica was down there in that big clearing,” Mandie explained, pointing below.

Uncle Ned looked in that direction and said, “Go, look, see.” He started down the slope.

Joe asked Mandie, “Why don’t you tie Snowball in the cart if you’re going down there, too?”

“It would be easier without him,” Mandie agreed and walked back to the cart.

Joe came to help her fasten Snowball’s leash to a rope tied on a hook inside the cart. “There, now he’ll be safe,” he said.

The two hurried back to follow Uncle Ned, who was already going down the hill. Mandie tried to catch up with him.

“Don’t rush so or you may slide down,” Joe warned Mandie as they stepped down the rocks on the hillside. “No hurry now. That mica’s long gone.”

“I know, but we might find it some other place down there,” Mandie told him. She didn’t dare look up at him for fear of making a wrong step and falling. “It has to be somewhere. It couldn’t have just—gone away—evaporated.”

“Well, it’s sure not here now,” Joe said.

They got down to the plateau and saw Uncle Ned bending over now and then to look at the ground. Mandie knew he was probably trying to trace tracks of some kind.

“The mound was over there next to that line of trees,” Mandie told him, pointing to the left.

“Yes, see,” the old man told her, walking to the place she indicated. He bent to scoop a handful of loose dirt and held it out to them. “Mica. See.”

Mandie and Joe both looked at the dirt as he scattered it back on the ground. Particles of mica sparkled like diamonds as it fell.

“I don’t understand how a mound of mica that big could just disappear overnight,” Mandie said.

“Was big?” Uncle Ned asked.

“Oh yes, sir,” Joe told him. “It was higher than a house and at least thirty feet long.”

“We find trail,” Uncle Ned told them. He led the way along the trees, stooping now and then to check the ground for mica particles. Mandie and Joe helped. They were making progress until the clues went straight into the river. The three of them stood there gazing into the water.

“Do you suppose they dumped it all into the river?” Mandie asked.

“I don’t think so,” Joe said. “It would make the river overflow its banks, that much mica would.”

“Yes, too much mica to be in river. Maybe part in river,” Uncle Ned told them.

“But how can we find that out?” Mandie asked.

“We search river,” the old man replied. “Look in water, see if mica in water.”

“But I can’t swim,” Mandie protested.

“But I can,” Joe said with a big grin.

“You’ll get your clothes all wet if you go in the river,” Mandie told him as she stood there staring at the water.

“We go get Sallie, and we go home for clothes,” Uncle Ned explained.

“Oh yes, Sallie must be thinking we’re never going to get there today,” Mandie agreed. “Are you going to your house, Uncle Ned, to get a change of clothes?”

“Yes, my house,” he agreed. “Then we come back, look in river.”

“Do you think you might have some clothes I could borrow?” Joe asked. “Or should I go back to my house and get something to change into?”

“Plenty clothes at my house. Now we go,” Uncle Ned said, turning back the way they had come.

Mandie hurried along with Joe and Uncle Ned, but she didn’t much like the idea of them going into the river when she couldn’t join them because she didn’t know how to swim. One of these days she was
going to learn to swim and surprise them all. Almost everybody she knew could swim, even Sallie, and she hated being the only one who couldn’t. She wondered why the fancy school she attended in Asheville, the Misses Heathwood’s School for Girls, didn’t teach swimming, but then she supposed it was not a ladylike thing to do. Sometimes her grandmother, Mrs. Taft, for all her wealth, acted in unladylike ways when it was not to her liking to do something. Maybe Mandie could talk her into allowing swimming lessons, wherever they taught such stuff. She would see about that.

“I think I hear that white cat,” Joe called back to her as he hurried up the slope.

Mandie distinctly heard Snowball’s angry meows. “He probably thinks we’ve forgotten about him,” Mandie said, following Joe.

Uncle Ned, bringing up the rear, laughed and said, “White cat spoiled.”

“I know he is,” Mandie agreed as she stepped onto the road above. “But remember, Uncle Ned, Snowball is special. I brought him with me from my father’s house when my father ... when my father went to heaven.” She looked up at the old man with tears in her eyes.

Uncle Ned embraced her and said, “Yes, white cat special.”

Joe had already reached the cart and he called back, “No wonder he is yelling. His leash is all tangled up.” He reached into the vehicle trying to get Snowball loose.

Mandie rushed to untangle her cat and then held him tightly in her arms. “I’m sorry, Snowball,” she said, rubbing her face on his soft white fur. “I won’t leave you alone again. I promise.”

“Come on, Mandie. We’ve got to go,” Joe called from his seat on the cart.

Mandie quickly glanced at Uncle Ned, who was already on his horse. She rushed to step up into the cart.

As they rode along to the Cherokee school to pick up Sallie, Mandie thought again about asking Joe what it was that he was trying to tell her from the train when he had gone off to college. But she decided it was not the right time. She didn’t want to try to discuss it while riding in the cart over the bumpy dirt road, jolting and swaying and having to hold on to her seat in some places. But she did need to make a certain time when it would be right to ask him about this.

When they arrived at the Cherokee school, Sallie was waiting just
inside the schoolroom. Carrying Snowball on her shoulder, Mandie opened the door and saw the missionary schoolteacher, Riley O’Neal, sitting at the front of the room before quite a few Cherokee teenagers. Sallie rose from the bench by the door to greet her.

“Mandie, I am so glad you could come,” Sallie said, and added as Joe came inside behind Mandie, “And you, too, Joe.” She looked behind Joe and saw her grandfather. “And my grandfather is here, too.” She was surprised.

With Mandie and Joe adding their comments, Uncle Ned quickly whispered to Sallie an explanation of what they were planning to do. They didn’t want to disturb the class.

Then Mandie heard the schoolmaster rise and say to the pupils, “Keep reading your books. I will return in a few minutes to ask you questions.” Riley O’Neal came quickly to the back to greet them.

“It is so nice to see everyone,” he said, looking at Joe and Uncle Ned and then at Mandie. “And, Miss Amanda, it is always a pleasure to have you visit.” He still had his Boston accent, Mandie noticed as she looked up at his smiling blue eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. O’Neal. I’m always happy to visit my friends,” Mandie replied, thinking the Misses Heathwood would be pleased with her ladylike deportment.

Sallie began explaining to Riley O’Neal about the mica and its disappearance. Mandie noticed he seemed to be listening, but he continued to stare at her instead of Sallie, which made her feel uncomfortable. She moved closer to Uncle Ned to break Mr. O’Neal’s line of vision but without any luck. Her face burned as she remembered how she had met the man. She had been running away from home and had slipped on the mountainside and came tumbling down right in front of his wagon.
Very embarrassing
, she thought. And now he was here to stay for a while at least. He had been able to get his missionary group to build this school to educate the Cherokee children.

“I regret that I cannot join you,” Riley O’Neal was saying to Uncle Ned. “But as you see, I have students who will be here until two o’clock. That is if they don’t get bored and decide to go home. Sallie here is very good at keeping them interested in their studies, even when it’s impossible for me to do so on occasion. I am hoping she will become a teacher someday. She would make a very fine one.” He looked at
Sallie, then turned his gaze back on Mandie and said, “Is there any hope of making a teacher out of you?”

Mandie smiled at him and said, “I’m not sure right now. All I can think of for the future would be to become a farmer like my father was.”

Uncle Ned, Joe, and Sallie all smiled at this remark, but Mr. O’Neal frowned and said, “Well, now, we do have to have farmers or we would all starve to death.”

Mandie felt as though he was teasing her with that remark. She turned to Uncle Ned and said, “If we are going all the way to your house and then back to the river, shouldn’t we hurry? Mrs. Woodard is expecting Joe and me back before suppertime.”

“Yes,” Uncle Ned agreed.

They said their good-byes and started for the door. Riley O’Neal followed them and said, “Perhaps when I get finished here I can find you at the river, Uncle Ned.”

“Yes, look there,” the old man replied.

Snowball squirmed to get down, and Mandie hurried on outside to the cart. Sallie followed and asked, “Will you be going into the river also, Mandie?”

Mandie sighed and said, “No, Sallie. Remember, I don’t know how to swim.”

“I forgot,” Sallie replied as they climbed up into the cart and Joe rushed after them.

Mandie looked back and saw Riley O’Neal hurrying to say something to Uncle Ned, who was mounting his horse. The old man nodded and rode over to the cart. Riley O’Neal went back to the schoolhouse front porch and stood there waving good-bye.