Mandie Collection, The: 8 (25 page)

“Maybe he has gone over to my house,” Joe told Mandie. “He knew you were coming this week, so he could have gone to see if you were there.”

“Then we’ll soon find out,” Mandie replied.

They went on down the road to Joe’s house, and he drove the cart to the barn. Mandie jumped down and waited while he took care of the horse. Since it was suppertime, Joe put the horse in its stall for the night.

“I don’t see my father’s buggy, so he’s not home yet,” Joe remarked as he looked in the other corridors of the barn.

“We’re not having much luck catching up with people today, are we?” Mandie said with a little laugh.

“Come on. At least my mother should be home,” Joe said.

They hurried to the back door of the house and on into the kitchen. There they found Mrs. Miller, who was preparing supper.

“Well, I’m glad to see somebody will be here to eat supper,” Mrs. Miller said as they shut the door behind them and began removing their wraps. Mandie set Snowball down, and he ran for the heat of the cookstove and sat down there, washing his face.

“My father hasn’t come home yet, has he?” Joe said.

“No, not yet, and neither has your mother,” Mrs. Miller replied as she stirred the contents of a pot on the stove.

“My mother is not here?” Joe asked. “Where did she go?”

“She went to a quilting bee down at Miss Abigail’s right after noontime,” Mrs. Miller told him. “Said she would be home in time for supper.”

Mandie walked over to the stove and held her hands out to the warmth. “Who are they making a quilt for?” she asked.

“Some widow lady way over yonder on the other side of Bryson City,” Mrs. Miller told her.

“Do you know if Mr. Jacob Smith has been by here today?” Joe asked as he joined Mandie by the stove.

“Not that I know of,” Mrs. Miller said, lifting the lid to another pot. “I’ve been here all afternoon and have not seen hide nor hair of him.”

“We’ve been by his house several times and he never is at home,” Joe told her.

“According to what I hear, he is still traveling back to his house in the mountains,” Mrs. Miller told him. She checked the roast in the oven. “Seems he has things up there that he’s gradually moving down here.”

“Mandie, maybe he just plain forgot that I told him on Friday that
you were coming to visit,” Joe said. “He must be gone back to his old house for something.”

“I hope he gets back before I have to go home,” Mandie replied. She glanced at Joe as they both stood by the warm cookstove, and she thought again about his farewell to her when he had gone away to college. She just had to ask him what he was trying to tell her as the train pulled out of the depot that day, but she had to pick the right moment to do this because she felt it might be something she didn’t want anyone else to hear.

“Why so deep in thought?” Joe asked her, breaking through her memory.

Mandie shuffled her feet and said, “I was just thinking.”

“I know. I could tell that from the expression on your face. It must have been some awfully serious thinking,” Joe replied with a smile.

Mandie felt her face blush. She wouldn’t meet Joe’s gaze and looked across the room instead. “I doubt that it was anything serious,” she said with a little nervous laugh.

“That’s all right if you don’t want to tell me what it was. I won’t tell you what I was thinking when I looked at you, either, then,” Joe teased.

Mandie giggled and said, “Oh, so you were thinking, too.”

Mrs. Miller had moved across the room to the cabinet and was taking down the dishes for the supper table. “Do you suppose y’all could stop doing all that thinking long enough to tell me whether y’all want to eat now or wait for Mrs. Woodard to come home? Goodness knows when the doctor will be back.”

Mandie quickly looked at Joe and said, “I think I’d rather wait for your mother, so she can tell us all about that quilting bee.”

Joe laughed and said, “All right, fine, but I don’t imagine there’s much to talk about concerning a quilting bee.” Looking at Mrs. Miller, he said, “We’ll just wait for my mother.”

Mrs. Miller was setting the table as she replied, “Then I’ll just keep everything warm.”

At that moment the back door opened and Dr. Woodard came in. “Well, well, looks like I’m just in time for supper,” he said, looking at the table and the young people standing by the stove.

“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Miller said with a big smile. “I’m waiting for Mrs. Woodard. She ought to be here any minute now.”

Dr. Woodard set down his medical bag and removed his coat and hat. He looked at Mrs. Miller and asked, “And where is Mrs. Woodard?”

“She’s over at Miss Abigail’s—” Mrs. Miller started to explain.

“At that quilting bee,” the doctor interrupted. “Sorry, I forgot she told me about that this morning.” He looked at Joe and asked, “And did y’all have a productive day?”

“Well, you see, we—” Joe began.

“Never mind,” Dr. Woodard interrupted Joe this time. “Let me go get cleaned up, and I’ll be right back to hear about it.” He quickly picked up his things and left the room.

“Always in a hurry,” Mrs. Miller remarked under her breath.

Joe heard her and said, “I wish he could take a day or two off now and then, but people just keep on getting sick and he keeps on doctoring them.” He sighed loudly.

Mandie said, “That’s exactly why I wouldn’t want to marry a doctor.” She grinned at Joe and added, “But who knows? I may never get married at all. I may be too busy with a career of my own to be a housewife.” Suddenly realizing she shouldn’t have said such a thing, because she knew Joe would immediately pick up on it, she quickly said, “Maybe your father knows where Mr. Jacob Smith is.”

“Maybe,” Joe agreed.

Mrs. Woodard came in the back door then with her sewing basket. “I hope I didn’t keep supper waiting,” she said to Mrs. Miller.

“No, ma’am,” Mrs. Miller said. “The doctor just got home, and now that you are here, I’ll have it all on the table right away.”

Joe looked at his mother and asked, “We had your cart; how did you get to Miss Abigail’s house?”

Mrs. Woodard began unbuttoning her coat as she walked on toward the door to the hallway. “Mrs. Amberson came by and got me, since she had to drive right by here anyway, and then she brought me back on her way home,” she explained.

Looking at Mandie, she added, “I’ll get rid of these things, and we’ll talk about your day, Amanda, at supper.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mandie said. “We had an interesting day.”

When Mrs. Woodard returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, Dr. Woodard was with her, and everyone took their places at the supper table, which stood at one end of the long room. The Woodards had a
dining room like the one Mandie was used to at home, but they only used it when they had lots of company, or in the summertime when the weather was warm enough that no fire had to be built in the huge stone fireplace and the heat from the iron cookstove was uncomfortable in the kitchen.

“Mrs. Miller, you take your food and go on home now and eat. I’m sure Mr. Miller must be waiting for his supper,” Mrs. Woodard told the woman as she set the last dish on the table.

“Thank you, Mrs. Woodard. I’ll be back by the time y’all finish and clear everything away,” Mrs. Miller replied. She went to the stove and began filling dishes from the pots and putting them in a large wicker basket. It was understood that she cooked enough at every meal to have food to take home for her husband and herself.

As they began the meal, Dr. Woodard asked questions about their day’s activities. “Did y’all figure out anything about that mica mound you found?”

“It’s gone,” Mandie told him.

“And we weren’t able to find it,” Joe added. “Not only that, did you know about the wagons that are missing?”

“Wagons missing?” Dr. Woodard asked, looking up from his plate.

Between them, Mandie and Joe explained about the missing wagons and Uncle Ned’s decision that the wagons and the mica were connected.

“This may be a dangerous situation,” Mrs. Woodard spoke up, looking at her husband.

“I can’t see that there’s any real danger in all this,” Dr. Woodard told her, setting down his coffee cup. “It sounds more like a prank to me, someone moving all that mica about the countryside. And I’d say Uncle Ned is right in thinking the wagons are connected with it.”

When the two young people told them about the stranger named Beethoven, whom they had met on the mountainside, Mrs. Woodard immediately looked at her husband again and said, “This stranger could have been a criminal.”

Dr. Woodard shook his head and said, “No, not this particular man. I haven’t seen him myself, but old Mrs. Montgomery was telling me that a stranger by that name had stayed at the Cherokee schoolhouse last night. Seems Riley O’Neal allowed him to sleep there.”

Mandie and Joe looked at each other.

“That’s what the man told us,” Mandie said, laying down her fork.

“And we were going to check it out with Mr. O’Neal when we see him again,” Joe added. He smiled as he swallowed the bite of meat in his mouth.

“So he was telling the truth,” Mandie said.

“We’ll have to tell this to Uncle Ned in the morning,” Joe said.

“I don’t think y’all should go around talking to strangers unless Uncle Ned or some other adult is with y’all,” Mrs. Woodard told them.

“We’re supposed to meet Uncle Ned and Sallie and Dimar at the Cherokee schoolhouse tomorrow morning to continue searching for the wagons,” Joe said.

“And looking for the mica,” Mandie added.

Looking at his mother, Joe asked, “Will you be needing your cart tomorrow? Or are you finished with the quilting?”

“You go ahead and take it. Mrs. Amberson has promised to stop by and pick me up on her way back to Miss Abigail’s tomorrow morning,” Mrs. Woodard told him. “We’ll probably have another week or two of working on the quilt, but while Amanda is here it’s easier for y’all to get about using the cart.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Joe told her.

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Mrs. Woodard,” Mandie said, then she realized she was sounding like one of the Misses Heathwood’s young ladies. She wondered if the school was going to change the way she acted and talked. Was it getting to be a habit? She wasn’t sure she wanted to change, so she added, “It sure is nice to visit back here in the country. I don’t have to act so proper. I can just be me, Mandie Shaw.” She smiled at Mrs. Woodard.

“Oh, you will always be you, Amanda, no matter where you go to school or where you live. You’re just a dyed in the wool country girl,” Mrs. Woodard replied, sipping her coffee.

“That’s right,” Dr. Woodard agreed, taking a biscuit from the platter in front of him. “I’ve always heard that you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.”

Mandie and Joe both laughed.

Mrs. Woodard told Dr. Woodard, “No, no, it’s the boy the old saying is about, not a girl.”

“Well, anyhow, I think it would apply to Miss Amanda,” the doctor said with a smile for his wife. Looking at Mandie, he added, “I can’t imagine Miss Amanda ever turning into a real city girl.”

In order to change the subject, Mandie asked, “Dr. Woodard, have you seen Mr. Jacob Smith today? We went by his house again—this morning and late this afternoon—and he wasn’t home.”

“No, I didn’t see him today,” Dr. Woodard told her.

“Mrs. Miller said he was going back to his old house now and then to haul some of his things down here,” Joe said. “Do you suppose that’s where he is?”

Mrs. Woodard frowned as she looked at Joe and said, “You know, Miss Abigail was wondering where he is, too. She said he borrows her cart to haul his belongings down here, since he doesn’t even have a wagon yet. He was supposed to come by yesterday and get her cart, but he never showed up.”

“Maybe he didn’t need the cart,” Dr. Woodard suggested.

“No, he definitely needed Miss Abigail’s cart,” Mrs. Woodard explained. “He had told her he was going to bring a huge trunk down from the old house. He’s afraid the place might be ransacked if people up there find out he’s no longer living there.”

“Oh shucks,” Mandie said with a slight frown. “Do you mean we have to go searching for Mr. Smith, on top of looking for the wagons and also the mica? This is getting to be a complicated mystery.”

“Yes, it is, and you love it,” Joe teased.

“I don’t know exactly how y’all are going to look for Mr. Smith when no one has any idea as to where he has gone,” Mrs. Woodard told them.

“I’ll ask on my rounds tomorrow if anyone has seen Mr. Smith. I’ll be traveling in the direction he would take to his old house, but of course I won’t be going that far,” Dr. Woodard said, laying his fork down and looking across the room. “Now, I do believe I see a chocolate cake over there on the sideboard.” He turned to grin at Mandie.

“I believe I do, too,” Mandie agreed, grinning back as she looked in that direction.

“Well, I know for sure there’s a chocolate cake over there on the sideboard,” Joe said with a laugh.

“Since you are so sure there’s a chocolate cake over there, why don’t you just go get it and bring it to the table? I’ll get rid of the plates,” Mrs. Woodard said, rising and beginning to remove the dinner plates.

Mandie quickly stood and helped take the dirty dishes to the sink. Snowball had remained asleep on the woodbox by the stove until Mandie bent to put some scraps on his plate. Then he quickly woke up, and without bothering to stretch or wash his face, he came bounding to see what was there.

“Now, don’t drag it out onto the floor,” Mandie told him. “Maybe I should stay right here and see that you don’t.”

“No, Amanda, let him be and come on back to the table,” Mrs. Woodard said as she began slicing the cake that Joe had set in front of her and putting the slices in the the cake plates already on the table.

“You’d better hurry before I eat it all up,” Joe warned her.

“Impossible,” Mandie declared as she slipped back into her chair at the table.

They sat around the table eating cake and talking until Mrs. Miller returned. Then they went into the parlor.

Dr. Woodard settled down next to a lamp and began reading a medical journal. Mrs. Woodard sat near another lamp with her Bible. She had told Mandie that she was in the process of reading straight through the book, and it was going to take some time to do that.