Mandie Collection, The: 8 (29 page)

“Then we do have a little more time, don’t we?” Mandie quickly asked Joe.

“Maybe a little, but not enough time to go back up that mountain. So where else do you want to go?” Joe asked her.

Mandie looked at Sallie and said, “You haven’t said a word, Sallie. Do you have any ideas as to where we should look?”

“Since you found Uncle Wirt’s wagon up the mountain that we searched, I would think the other two wagons may be in that mountain. But that is too far and takes too long for the rest of today,” Sallie replied, glancing at her grandfather.

“Yes, too far,” Uncle Ned agreed.

“Do you have any more ideas about who stole the wagons and moved the mica?” Joe asked Uncle Ned.

“Not yet,” Uncle Ned replied. “But must be Cherokee.”

“I agree,” Dimar said.

Uncle Ned stood up. “Now I take Sallie home,” he said to Dimar. “Then we get wagon.”

Joe also stood up. “And now we go home, Mandie,” he said. Looking at Uncle Ned, he asked, “Do you want us to meet you at the Cherokee schoolhouse early tomorrow morning?”

“Yes,” the old man said, starting toward his wagon.

Sallie turned to Mandie and said, “School is open tomorrow until noon. I will join you after that.”

“And so will I,” Riley O’Neal put in. Looking at Uncle Ned, he said, “If you will give us an idea tomorrow morning as to where you are going, Sallie and I will come and join you after we close the school.”

“Will go back up same mountain, search woods off trail for other wagons,” the old man explained.

“What about the mica, Uncle Ned? Do you think it could have been moved up a mountain?” Mandie asked, picking up Snowball as she rose.

Uncle Ned stopped to look back at her on his way to his wagon. “Not found trail yet for mica but will,” he replied. “Soon.” He went on to his wagon.

Mandie followed Joe over to his cart as Sallie, Dimar, and Riley O’Neal went to ride with Uncle Ned. They all waved good-bye, and Joe drove toward his house and Uncle Ned toward Deep Creek.

“Do you mind if we go by to see if Mr. Jacob Smith has ever come home?” Mandie asked as they rode down the road.

“Not at all,” Joe said with a big smile, looking at Mandie. “That is exactly what I had planned to do. I know you want to see him, but I have become curious as to why we can’t find him.”

“I am beginning to think that he just went on back to his old house for some reason and that he’ll probably get back before I leave,” Mandie told him, holding Snowball in her lap. “At least I hope he gets back before Uncle John comes for me.”

“Maybe Miss Abigail has some news of him. We’ll go by there after we check the house, if he’s not home,” Joe said, lightly holding the reins as the horse trotted on, pulling the cart.

After a while they came to Mandie’s father’s house where Mr. Jacob Smith lived. As Joe drove the cart into the yard, he almost ran over a mother hen and a flock of biddies before he saw them. Quickly halting the cart, he jumped down to investigate.

“Joe! Where did they come from?” Mandie asked in surprise as she hurried to join Joe. “You said he doesn’t have any chickens.”

“He doesn’t, at least as of last Friday he didn’t,” Joe said in a puzzled voice. “I would like to know, too, where they came from.”

Mandie watched the chickens roam around the yard after settling down from the fright of the cart. “They act like they belong here,” she said, holding tightly to Snowball in her arms as he tried his best to get down.

Joe quickly looked into the barn and said, “He is still gone. His horse is not here,” he told Mandie. “Those chickens probably wandered off from their home somewhere and ended up here.”

Mandie looked over at the chicken pen by the barn where her father had kept their chickens when he was living here. “I don’t suppose Mr. Jacob has anything to feed them, and I don’t even see any water anywhere,” she said.

Joe glanced back into the barn and said, “No feed around that I can see. When we get back to my house, I can bring something back for them.”

“Don’t you think we ought to catch them and put them in the pen so someone won’t run over them like we almost did?” Mandie asked.

“We can do that when we come back with the feed,” Joe said. “Come on. Let’s go by Miss Abigail’s.”

As they got back into the cart and Joe drove it up the path to the main road, Mandie kept watching behind them to be sure they hadn’t run over any of the baby chickens or their mama. Memories came back to her of the many chickens her father had raised. He had allowed her to pet the baby ones now and then when the mama wasn’t around. She knew the hen would peck her if she caught Mandie handling her brood. And Mandie almost never got used to the idea that someday the babies would grow into full-sized chickens and would sooner or later be made into a meal for the family. She had learned never to get too closely involved with them because of what happened later.

Miss Abigail didn’t live very far away, and Joe was soon pulling the cart up by her front door. Mandie jumped down and Joe followed her to the front porch, where the lady was sitting in a rocking chair reading a book in the late afternoon sunshine.

“Come in,” Miss Abigail greeted them. “Have a seat.” She indicated the swing and other chairs nearby.

“We can’t stay, Miss Abigail,” Mandie told her as she sat on a chair, still holding Snowball. “We haven’t been able to catch up with Mr. Jacob Smith, and we were wondering if you had seen him.”

“No, I haven’t,” Miss Abigail replied, closing her book with a bookmark. “I suppose he must have gone back to his old house for something and got delayed. But it does look like he would let me know because he was supposed to borrow my cart. Maybe it was an emergency of some kind and he didn’t need the cart right then.”

Joe sat on the banister and said, “We keep coming by the house and there’s still no sign of him returning.”

“Oh, Miss Abigail, we just came from there, and there was a hen and a whole bunch of biddies wandering around the yard!” Mandie exclaimed.

“Well, I wonder where they came from?” Miss Abigail said with a frown. “Now, if he hasn’t been home all week, those chickens must need feeding.”

“We’re going to my house to get some feed and bring it back and put them in the chicken pen,” Joe told her.

“Now, you all don’t have to go all the way back to your house for feed,” Miss Abigail objected, rising from the chair. “I have plenty of chicken feed. You just come on back here to the barn with me and get some to take over there, you hear?”

Joe slipped down to his feet and said, “Thank you, Miss Abigail.”

Mandie stood up, holding on to Snowball, and followed Miss Abigail and Joe down the steps of the porch and around to the barn in the back. Then she said, “We don’t know where the hen and her biddies came from, Miss Abigail. Do you think they belong to someone else and wandered away from their home? Or do you think Mr. Jacob Smith owns them?”

“Oh dear, I just don’t know,” Miss Abigail said, pausing on the pathway to look back at Mandie. “I do know some of the neighbors were going to sell Mr. Smith some chickens when he got finished moving in. Maybe that’s where they came from.” She walked on toward the barn.

Mandie and Joe followed. Mandie thought about that and said, “But, Miss Abigail, you said he’s still moving things from the old house, and, besides, we haven’t seen the chickens there this week and we’ve been going by every day.”

Inside the barn, Miss Abigail handed Joe a sack and told him, “There’s plenty of feed over there if you’ll just fill this up.”

Joe walked over to the corner and found bags of different farm necessities on neat shelves, among which were several containing chicken feed. He quickly filled the empty sack.

“Thank you, Miss Abigail,” Joe told her when he had finished. “We’ll tell Mr. Smith where we got the feed when we catch up with him.”

As they walked back to the front of the house, Mandie remarked, “I’m wondering if there might be more chickens there that we didn’t see.” Turning to Joe, she said, “We need to search the whole yard. There might be something else that needs to be fed.”

“We will,” Joe promised. He put the bag of feed into the cart. “Now we’d better hurry and get this done so we won’t be late for supper.” He jumped up into the cart.

Mandie handed up Snowball to Joe and climbed in after him.

Miss Abigail, standing by the front steps, said, “Will you all please let me know if you find out where Mr. Smith is, or if he returns? This is most peculiar of him to act this way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mandie and Joe said together as he drove the cart back up the road.

When they got back to where Mr. Smith lived, they found the chickens still roaming around the yard.

“Let’s get the feed and water ready first, and then we’ll catch them and put them in the pen,” Joe said, jumping down from the cart.

Mandie quickly tied Snowball’s leash on to a hook in the cart and followed.

Joe drew water from the well and together they washed out the long-unused water trough in the pen. Then they cleaned and dried the containers for the feed.

Mandie happened to look behind her while they were filling the containers with the feed they had brought from Miss Abigail’s. The hen had followed them into the pen and was making daring pecks at the feed. “Look, Joe! They are hungry!” she said, straightening up and stepping back so the biddies could follow their mother to the food.

Joe stood by, watching, and said, “The poor things. They are really hungry.”

“I’m glad we found them so we could feed them,” Mandie said.

Joe edged slowly toward the gate of the pen so as not to disturb the chickens. “Now we’d better get out of here and close them up before they get out again.”

Mandie followed him, and as they closed the gate she spied a tiny straggly-looking biddie that had been left behind and was peeping loudly as it ran around the yard. “Look, Joe,” she said, slowly moving toward the stray chicken. “Let’s pen it in between us and I’ll be able to pick it up.”

They moved around in a circle and finally Mandie got close enough to snatch up the biddie. It peeped loudly as she quickly took it to the pen and opened the gate to push it through with the others.

“They seem to be tame,” Joe remarked.

Mandie watched the stray biddie make its way to the feed trough. “You know, that one looks different. See the black spots on him. He doesn’t look like he belongs to the rest of the hen’s family.”

Joe looked into the pen and said, “You’re right, but then sometimes the babies don’t all look alike. Let’s get going before my mother sends someone to look for us.” He laughed, walking toward the cart.

Mandie followed and said, “Your mother wouldn’t do that, would she?” She climbed into the vehicle and untied Snowball’s leash so she could hold him.

Joe jumped into the cart, picked up the reins, and said, “No, not at my age, I don’t think she would, but then, you never know.” He drove the cart up to the main road.

“Maybe she knows something about the hen and biddies,” Mandie remarked. “Or she might even have some word about Mr. Jacob Smith. Yes, let’s do hurry!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ANOTHER SEARCH

The next morning was Thursday, and Mandie realized her visit was coming swiftly to an end. Uncle John would be back to get her on Saturday, and she had not really accomplished anything concerning the mysteries she had become involved in. She thought about all this as she dressed and brushed her hair in the guest room at the Woodards’.

“Not only have we been unable to solve the mystery concerning the mica and the wagons, but no one knows where Mr. Jacob Smith is,” she muttered to herself as she stood before the floor-length mirror. And she quickly added in a loud whisper, “And I haven’t even found out what Joe was trying to tell me from the train when he left for college. I ought to go ahead and ask him, I suppose.”

When Mandie and Joe had returned to the Woodards’ home on the previous afternoon, they found that neither Mrs. Woodard nor Dr. Woodard had heard a word about Mr. Smith. Joe’s parents decided, like Miss Abigail, that the man had returned to his old house for some reason, maybe an emergency of some kind. They also didn’t know anything about the hen and biddies Mandie and Joe had found at Mr. Smith’s house.

Mandie thought about this as she straightened her long skirts and went downstairs for breakfast. Joe was already there waiting for her, and Mrs. Miller had the food ready. Mrs. Woodard was sleeping late
since the doctor had gone out early on calls. Snowball was hastily eating from a bowl under the stove.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Joe greeted her with a big grin as he stood by the stove watching Mrs. Miller dish up the food.

“I imagine I was awake before you were. It just takes a girl longer to dress than it does a boy,” Mandie replied, smiling at him and then greeting Mrs. Miller. “Good morning, Mrs. Miller.”

“Good morning, dear,” the woman said as she brought food to the table. “Now y’all hurry up and eat before everything gets cold. I am packing a basket today for y’all to take with you for your noon meal.”

Mandie and Joe hurried to the table and sat down. Mrs. Miller poured coffee for them.

“Thanks for remembering to give us food to take with us today,” Joe told her as he passed the platter of scrambled eggs to Mandie.

“You shouldn’t go around eating other folks’ cooking. You never know how clean it is,” Mrs. Miller told him as she took down a basket from a shelf.

Mandie looked at her quickly and said, “Mrs. Miller, our friends shared their food with us. I have been in their houses and they are just as clean as we are.”

Mrs. Miller’s face turned red and she became flustered as she packed biscuits into the basket. “Why, I didn’t mean your friends at all. I am packing enough that you can share your food with them today.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Miller,” Joe said. Turning to Mandie, he said, “Guess we’d better hurry so we won’t keep Uncle Ned and the others waiting.” He began eating the food he had piled onto his plate.

“Yes,” Mandie agreed and started in on her food. “I suppose Uncle Ned and Dimar were able to get Uncle Wirt’s wagon down from the mountain last night. And I’m thinking, since it couldn’t possibly come down the narrow trail we traveled yesterday, they would have had to go in a different direction. There must be other wider paths in that mountain. And just maybe they found the other two wagons on their way down.”