The Mandie Collection (14 page)

Joe stepped down from the ladder and looked at Snowball sitting there holding a large rat in his mouth. “The rat's dead. I'll take it away from him,” he said. He grabbed a stick that was used to straighten up the jars and cans on the top shelf and began poking at the rat.

“Snowball, let go of that thing,” Mandie demanded.

But instead of letting go of the rat, Snowball raced off through the cellar and up the steps into the house. Mandie and Joe were close behind him.

At the top Liza screamed and dropped all the linens she had been carrying, and they scattered all over the floor. Snowball got tangled up in the things but never let go of the rat.

“Open the back door!” Joe screamed at Liza, who was running down the hallway toward the outside door.

Liza didn't pay any attention to him. She yanked the door open and ran out into the yard. Snowball had managed to get out of the linens and was right behind her.

Mandie breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the cat go outside. “Well, thank goodness!” she said.

“Yes, and now we'd better get back downstairs and see about those lamps we left down there,” Joe reminded her as he hurried for the steps to the cellar. Mandie followed.

Both of them blew out their breath as they saw the lamps were all right, just sitting right where they had left them.

“I need to get this back,” Joe said, starting to fold the ladder.

Something white on the floor caught Mandie's eyes, and she said, “Wait a minute,” as she stooped to investigate.

Joe bent to see what she was doing. “That's a piece of paper,” he said.

It looked old and dirty, and Mandie was afraid the rat had had it, so she wouldn't touch it.

Joe reached down and got it. “Just a piece of paper that was torn up, or the rat might have eaten on it,” he said, turning it over. Then he
noticed some small writing at the edge. “This says Swain County,” he told Mandie, holding it out for her to see.

“But there's nothing else on it,” she said.

“It seems to be a piece of a document of some kind,” Joe said, still studying the paper.

“Let's give it to Uncle John and see what he thinks,” Mandie said. She still wouldn't touch it. She looked up and added, “It must have come out of that place where Snowball was stuck, don't you think?”

“Yes, I suppose it could have,” Joe said, straightening the ladder. “I'll go back up there and try to see inside the hole.” He laid the piece of paper on a shelf and began climbing the ladder.

Mandie held up her lamp. “Can you see?” she asked.

“Not too well,” Joe said. “Hand me that stick down there. I'll poke around inside with it.”

Mandie passed him the stick and Joe ran it inside the space where the cat had been. He moved it around and around and withdrew it, but nothing came out.

“I don't think anything is in there,” he said, finally coming back down the ladder. “Maybe it didn't come from up there. Maybe it was already on the floor here and we just didn't see it.”

“I don't know, but I think we'd better quit and go back upstairs and see about Liza and all those linens,” Mandie said.

“It must be time to get cleaned up for supper anyway,” Joe said. “I'll just leave the ladder here in case your uncle wants to look up there. And the paper is over there on the shelf. It's too dirty to take into the house.”

When they reached the top of the steps, Liza was nowhere in sight, but Aunt Lou was standing there looking down at all the mess of linens on the floor. When she saw Mandie and Joe, she asked, “Y'all know anything 'bout dis heah mess?”

“I'm sorry, Aunt Lou, but Snowball caught a rat and came flying up through here and scared Liza,” Mandie explained.

“Jes' wait till I finds dat Liza,” the old woman said, going on down the hallway.

Mandie and Joe looked at each other.

“I'm afraid we're all in trouble,” Joe said.

“We probably are,” Mandie agreed.

CHAPTER TEN

PAPERS

“If we're in trouble, I suppose the best thing to do is to destroy the evidence,” Joe told Mandie as they stood there staring at the linens on the floor. He quickly stooped down and began folding the napkins and tablecloths.

“I'm not sure it's all clean enough to use now, but we can stack it up,” Mandie agreed as she bent to help.

Joe examined the linens as he picked them up. “I don't see anything that looks dirty. Maybe it won't have to be washed all over again,” he said, quickly making order out of the mess.

“It looks all right to me, but I think Snowball walked through some of it with that rat in his mouth, so I'm not sure it's fit to use,” Mandie told him as she made a stack of the napkins on the table near the door.

“Well, at least we've got it all back in some order,” Joe said as he stood up and surveyed the pile on the table.

At that moment Liza came back in from the yard. She stopped in astonishment as she saw the neat pile. “Whut y'all done went and done?” she asked. “Ain't no use foldin' up all dat dirty linen 'cause I has to wash it to git the rat smell out of it.”

Aunt Lou also came down the hallway from the front of the house and she overheard the remark. “You sho' will wash all dat mess all
over agin,” she said as she looked at Liza. “Actin' like a idiot. Dat's whut you did. Now you made all dis heah extry work fo' yo'self. Take it all to de laundry room. And you wash it fust thing in de mawnin', you heah?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Liza replied as she picked up the stack and started down the hallway.

“I'm sorry, Liza,” Mandie called after her.

“Me too. Maybe we could help you wash the stuff tomorrow,” Joe volunteered.

Liza looked back, grinned at him, and continued down the corridor.

“Now, look heah, you doctuh son, Liza gwine wash all dat stuff by herself,” Aunt Lou quickly told him. “I'm punishin' huh for losing huh senses over a tiny lil rat. Now y'all git on wid yo' bidness.” She went on down to the kitchen door and went inside.

Mandie looked at Joe and laughed. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get on with your business,” she teased him.

“You too. In fact, I believe you are dirtier than I am from that cellar,” Joe said.

They walked on together, and just as they reached the corner in the hallway, Mandie heard the back door open and close. She looked back. Uncle John and Uncle Ned had just come in.

Mandie went to meet them. “Uncle John, had the Burnses seen Etta and Zack?” she asked. Joe came up by her side.

“Ludie said no one had been around their house, and Jake wasn't even at home,” John Shaw told her as he removed his hat and coat and Uncle Ned did likewise.

“Had he gone back to the mine?” Joe asked.

“No, Ludie said he had gone up the mountain on some business because he figured I wasn't coming to see him. I was supposed to go by the mine this morning, you know,” John explained as they all walked toward the front hallway.

“Uncle Ned, did you see any sign of Etta and Zack having been there?” Mandie asked. She knew the old man could find clues and track people with some little something that white people didn't notice.

“No, Papoose, no sign,” Uncle Ned replied.

When they got to the front hallway, John hung his hat and coat on
the hall tree, and Uncle Ned removed his jacket and placed it on one of the hooks.

“We've got to get cleaned up now for supper,” John told the young people. “And you two look like you could use some soap and water.”

“Uncle John, we've been in the cellar,” Mandie said, quickly relating the events down there.

“And we found a small piece of paper that just has the words ‘Swain County' on it. It's dirty and torn and the rat might have chewed on it, so we left it down there for you to look at,” Joe told him.

“All right. Let's make ourselves presentable, and after we eat we'll go down there and see what you're talking about,” John Shaw told them.

Which is what they did.

After supper as everyone finished and got up from the table, John Shaw said, “Now we will go look at that piece of paper in the cellar that you two found.” He looked at Mandie and Joe.

“A piece of paper in the cellar?” Mrs. Taft questioned as she rose and started for the door.

“Yes, ma'am,” Mandie said as she and Joe followed the adults out of the dining room. “It's just a scrap of paper, but it says ‘Swain County' across the edge, and nothing else is on it, but this is Macon County, and I thought maybe it could be connected to my father, or the will, or something over there at Charley Gap in Swain County.”

“Yes, that is interesting,” Mrs. Taft said as they continued down the hallway toward the parlor.

“John, could it be something that belonged to Jim?” Elizabeth asked.

John Shaw stopped and looked down at his beautiful wife. “As far as I know no one else in the family ever lived in Swain County.” He glanced at Uncle Ned. “Except Uncle Ned and Morning Star, of course.”

The old Indian smiled and said, “Yes, we part of Shaw family back in the old days when you young, John Shaw.”

Mandie knew he was referring to the years and years he and his wife, Morning Star, had lived in the Shaw home, when John's father was living. Even though John Shaw's mother had been Cherokee, Uncle Ned was not related.

“You are still part of our family, Uncle Ned, and Morning Star, too,” Mandie told him.

“Yes, y'all are, Uncle Ned,” John Shaw reminded him.

“Love,” Uncle Ned said, putting an arm around John Shaw's shoulders.

John Shaw squeezed his old wrinkled hand and said, “Love.” He looked back at Elizabeth and said, “But I don't see how a piece of paper that belonged to Jim ever got back in this house, because he never came back home again after he moved to Swain County.”

“We'll all go in the parlor while you and Amanda and Joe explore the basement,” Elizabeth told him with a smile as she and her mother went on down the hall.

“Come on, Uncle Ned, go with us,” Mandie urged the old man.

She and Joe led the way down the steps with lighted lamps, and John Shaw and Uncle Ned followed.

“There it is, right there,” Mandie said, pointing to the paper on the shelf where Joe had left it.

John Shaw picked up the scrap of paper, looked it over, and then handed it to Uncle Ned. “I don't believe it's possible to figure out what this is a piece of, do you, Uncle Ned?”

Uncle Ned examined the paper thoughtfully and then he said, “Maybe. Many years ago father of John Shaw buy things from place in Swain County.”

The others listened and waited for him to continue.

After a moment John Shaw asked, “What kind of things?”

“Sawmill,” the old man said. “Wood.” He reached to touch the edge of one of the shelves. “Like this.”

“Well, that solves this mystery,” John Shaw said. “My father probably bought the wood for these very shelves from a sawmill in Swain County.”

Mandie wasn't completely satisfied with the explanation. “Oh, well,” she said. “That probably is a dead-end mystery.”

“Snowball had climbed up there and was stuck between the boards, and I had to pull him out. He had the rat in his mouth then,” Joe explained as he pointed overhead.

John Shaw looked up and frowned. Uncle Ned stepped up on the rungs of the ladder and examined the place.

“The hole was empty. I looked and couldn't find anything inside,” Joe told the men.

Uncle Ned put his hand inside the space and drew it out empty. He grunted and began examining the boards around the hole while the others watched.

“There's nothing up there,” Joe repeated.

Then Uncle Ned began scratching on a piece of wood overhead.

“What have you found, Uncle Ned?” Mandie asked excitedly as she watched.

Uncle Ned didn't answer but grunted again as he continued scratching on the wood. Then suddenly he pulled a piece of paper off one of the boards and held it out for the others to see. “More,” he told them.

John Shaw reached up to take the piece of paper, and Mandie and Joe crowded close by to see what he had. It was a larger scrap than the one Joe had found, but it was wrinkled and dirtied with time, and the writing had faded.

“Can anyone read it?” John Shaw asked as he squinted at the paper.

Mandie and Joe also squinted in an effort to decipher the writing on the paper.

“This all,” Uncle Ned said as he stepped down off the ladder with another larger piece of paper in his hand.

John Shaw laid the pieces together on a vacant space in one of the shelves, and everyone crowded around.

“It's terrible handwriting, whoever wrote it,” Joe remarked. “Even I can write better than that.”

Mandie laughed and said, “I don't know about that. I think I can read this, and I never can read yours. This says ‘Bought from Swain County Sawmill.' I can at least read that much. You were right, Uncle Ned.”

The old Indian looked at her and smiled.

John Shaw continued examining the paper. “I believe it was a receipt for the very board you found it stuck on, Uncle Ned,” he said. “I know my father replaced some of the ceiling here in the cellar when I was young, so this is probably what this is for.”

“May I keep it, Uncle John? Please,” Mandie said, holding out her hand for the two pieces of paper.

“Of course, Amanda, if you'd like it you may have it,” John Shaw told her as he handed the papers to her.

Mandie took it and held it close in her two hands. “This belonged to my grandfather that I never even saw,” she said with a faraway look in her blue eyes.

“That's right, my father,” John Shaw said.

“Thank you, Uncle Ned, for finding this for me,” Mandie told the old man.

Uncle Ned put his arm around her shoulders and said, “Love, Papoose.”