The Mandie Collection (37 page)

“I haven't finished buying everything I need, either, dear,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe we can go downtown together tomorrow.” Looking at Mrs. Taft, she added, “And you, too, of course, Mother.”

“No, thank you,” Mrs. Taft said. “I have mine all bought, wrapped, and waiting in my trunk. I'm not anxious to get in the crowds of shoppers.”

Mandie did some quick thinking. She still couldn't get up the nerve to tell her grandmother what she had done, and she certainly didn't want her mother to give it away, but on the other hand, she couldn't stick with the two women every minute. She must watch for an opportunity to let her mother know she had not told her grandmother. So she would just have to separate them somehow.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Liza, the young maid, appearing at the door just then with a loaded tea cart that she pushed into the parlor.

“Oh, Liza, I'm so glad to see you,” Mandie said, jumping up to rush and squeeze Liza's hand.

Liza smiled at her and said, “And I sho' am glad to be seein' you, Missy 'Manda. House been too quiet whilst you been gone.”

Mandie laughed and said, “I'll be here until the day after New Year's, and then I have to go back to school. I've got to tell you all about New York. Liza, it's huge! And crammed full of people everywhere.”

“You don't say!” Liza exclaimed and then added, “But I got to go back to de kitchen right now 'fo Aunt Lou come lookin' fo' me.” Turning to Mandie's mother, she asked, “Miz 'Lizbeth, do everything look all right on dis heah cart?”

“Everything looks fine, Liza,” Elizabeth replied, standing up to pour coffee from the pot. “You go on back to the kitchen and I'll take care of this.”

“Yessum,” Liza said as she started out the door.

“And, Liza, would you please tell Aunt Lou and all the others I'll see them in a little while?” Mandie asked.

“I sho' will, and I'll tell dem you gwine tell us all 'bout dat big place called Noo Yawk,” Liza said as she smiled and went on out the door.

As soon as everyone had a cup of coffee and a sweet cake, John Shaw came into the parlor.

“Well, well, looks like I'm in time to join in,” he said, going directly to the coffeepot and pouring himself a cup. Looking at Mrs. Taft, he said, “Glad you could come. We always look forward to seeing you.”

“Thank you, John. It's always a pleasure to visit with y'all,” Mrs. Taft replied.

“And how's my little blue eyes?” he asked Mandie as he sat down nearby with the cup of coffee.

“Just fine, Uncle John. I'm always ready for holidays and a chance to come home,” Mandie told him. “Especially Christmastime.”

“With all the guests that go with it, no doubt,” John Shaw said with a smile. “And I do believe we have quite a few coming to stay this year. The Woodards, Uncle Ned, and—”

“I know,” Mandie interrupted him and then, smiling, added, “Just think. I don't have to be back to school until next year, 1902.”

“But the second day of the year, if I remember correctly,” Uncle John said with a nod.

“You got back home sooner than you expected, John. Were you able to take care of everything?” Elizabeth asked.

“Oh yes, all accomplished,” John told her with a big wink.

Mandie, forever listening and looking for a mystery, frowned as she heard their conversation. What were her mother and Uncle John up to? Evidently they had some secret going between them. She glanced at her grandmother, but Mrs. Taft was absorbed in eating her sweet cake and was not in on the conversation.
Oh well
, she thought,
I can always find out lots of things just by remaining silent most of the time
.

“I thought we'd go find a nice Christmas tree after Joe gets here tomorrow,” Uncle John told her.

“So the Woodards are coming tomorrow. That'll be fine, Uncle John,” Mandie replied.

“Yes, Dr. Woodard has a patient or two he wants to drop in on in this area, so they're coming to visit tomorrow and will be here until New Year's if things don't get busy for him in other parts of the country,” John Shaw said. “Now, the other guests—”

Mandie quickly stood up and set her cup and plate on the table
nearby. “I think I'll go to the kitchen and see everyone, and then go upstairs and change clothes,” she said, glancing at her grandmother, who seemed to be comfortable in the big chair. She started out the door.

“All right, dear. We're planning on supper at six tonight,” Elizabeth said. “Polly Cornwallis and her mother will be over to join us, so please don't forget.”

“Polly and her mother are coming to eat with us tonight?” Mandie questioned as she looked back into the room from the doorway. “Polly left school yesterday, a day early, so she and her mother could visit some relatives somewhere or other. They must have come on home.”

“I believe they had a change in plans. But, anyhow, I spoke to Polly's mother this morning and invited them over tonight,” Elizabeth explained.

“Oh well,” Mandie said with a sigh. “I'll remember.” She wasn't particularly fond of her next-door neighbor, Polly Cornwallis.

Mandie hurried down the long corridor to the kitchen. She could smell delicious odors coming from behind the closed door. And suddenly she felt starved.

She pushed open the door and was greeted by Aunt Lou, Jenny the cook, and Liza, who were all working around the big iron cookstove. Jenny's husband, Abraham, was stoking the firebox on the stove. Snowball was asleep in the wood box.

“There's my chile,” Aunt Lou said, coming to embrace Mandie.

“I'm so glad to be home,” Mandie said, returning the hug and then going to squeeze Jenny's free hand. “And to see everybody—Aunt Lou, Jenny, and Abraham, you, too. I've already seen Liza.” She stepped over near the old man and added, “And guess what, Abraham? I saw your friend Dr. Plumbley in New York.”

Abraham straightened up, looked at her, and said, “Is dat so? How he be, Missy? He comin' down dis way when it git warm weather?”

“He said he was,” Mandie told him, and turning back to look at all the others, she became excited as she began relating her adventures in New York with Celia Hamilton and her mother during the Thanksgiving holiday. “You just can't imagine how big the place is and how many people are living inside that one town.”

All the servants were listening to every word.

“And the Guyers have this enormous mansion so big we kept getting lost in it! And that hotel we stayed in at first had one thousand rooms
in it,” she explained, wide-eyed with her story. “Can you imagine that? One thousand rooms in one building?”

“Lawsy mercy, Missy, I couldn't count dat many rooms,” Jenny said as she held a spoon over the boiling pot on the stove.

“How many people dey got cleanin' up all dat big building?” Liza asked, holding the lid to another pot in her hand.

Aunt Lou had opened the oven to check on a roast inside, and she straightened up to ask, “Why do my chile want to go to dat Yankee place?”

Mandie laughed and said, “Because I wanted to see what the place looked like and how the people up there live. Some of it is filled with huge mansions, but a good part of the town is full of poor people and terrible slums, pitiful people. Some of them can't even speak English.”

Aunt Lou closed the oven door and turned to Mandie. “And when do dem Yankee friends of my chile plan to arrive heah?” she asked.

“Oh, so you know that Mr. Guyer and Jonathan are coming to visit us for the Christmas holidays!” Mandie exclaimed. “Please don't tell grandmother. She doesn't know yet.”

“Why you not want huh to know?” Liza asked. “She gwine see dem when dey gits heah.”

“I know, Liza, but I have to tell her first,” Mandie quickly replied. “I sorta think my grandmother doesn't like Jonathan's father for some reason, and therefore she may not like the idea of them spending the holidays here with us. So I have to talk to her and try to persuade her to at least be nice to them.”

“Dat's easier said den done, my chile,” Aunt Lou said as she shook her head in dismay.

“Yo' gramma done sot in huh ways. I be thinkin' dis is gwine be a feisty Christmas,” Jenny said as she turned to stir the contents of the pot.

“And I have another problem,” Mandie said with a big sigh.

The servants paused to look at her.

“Seems you ain't got nuthin' but problems today,” Abraham muttered.

“You all know Joe Woodard and his parents will be here during the whole week, beginning tomorrow according to Uncle John,” Mandie said. “Well, you see, Joe Woodard and Jonathan Guyer don't like each other, either.”

Everyone gasped, and Liza grinned and said, “And you gotta problem, too, Missy 'Manda. Dat Miss Sweet Thing next do', she gwine be home all Christmastime, and she gwine be settin' dem black eyes on de doctuh's son. Jes' you waits and see.”

Mandie felt her face flush as she thought about the way Polly always seemed to trail after her and Joe. “Oh, Liza, I'm not worried about that,” she replied. “And I'll have to figure out some way when Joe arrives tomorrow to let him know that Jonathan is also coming. And I still have to talk to my grandmother about the Guyers.”

“Bettuh git busy and do dat' 'fo dem people gits heah,” Aunt Lou warned her.

“I've got to go upstairs and change clothes. Maybe Grandmother has gone to her room and I can talk to her about it,” Mandie said as she turned to leave the room.

“Let us know if we kin he'p in all dis mess you got yo'self into, my chile,” Aunt Lou called after her.

“Thanks. I don't know what y'all can do, but I'll let you know,” Mandie said as she hurried into the hallway.

She had to talk to her grandmother before the Guyers arrived, and she had not been able to ask her mother or Uncle John when they would get there. This was going to be an exciting, and maybe a miserable, Christmas.

CHAPTER TWO

MORE QUESTIONS

Mandie hurried down the upstairs hallway to the room her grandmother always occupied when she came to visit. The door was closed. She was probably inside.

“Grandmother,” Mandie called as she gently tapped on the closed door. “Grandmother, could I speak to you for just a minute?”

There was the sound of movement inside the room, and then Mrs. Taft replied without opening the door, “Amanda, please see me later, dear. I'm getting changed for supper.”

“Oh shucks!” Mandie said aloud to herself, and then answered, “All right, Grandmother. I'll see you later. I have to get dressed, too.”

“Fine,” Mrs. Taft called back.

Mandie hurried to her own room. She stepped inside and closed the door. Then she thought about finding her mother and asking exactly when the Guyers were arriving. Glancing at the china clock on the mantelpiece, she saw it was already twenty minutes past five. She didn't have time. It would have to wait.

Quickly flipping through her clothes hanging in the tall wardrobe, she took down a blue plaid wool dress. Even though there was a fire blazing away in the fireplace in the room, she felt cold as she thought about the problem of the Guyers coming for the holidays.

As Mandie started to change her clothes, a loud meow and a scratch
at the bottom of the door told her Snowball was outside. She quickly let him into the room. He jumped up on the tall bed and walked in circles before he finally settled down in the middle and curled up.

“Snowball, I believe you're glad to be home, too,” Mandie said, reaching to rub his white head.

The cat looked up at her and purred.

“And Christmas is next Wednesday, which means you'll have all kinds of good things to eat,” Mandie added, continuing to pat his head. Snowball wasn't interested in anything but going to sleep. He moved his head away from her hand, curled up tighter, and closed his eyes.

As soon as Mandie was dressed, she rushed back down to the parlor, hoping to catch her mother or Uncle John to find out when the Guyers would be arriving. The room was empty. She kept walking back and forth from the warmth of the fireplace to the door to watch the hallway. Maybe her mother or Uncle John would get back before her grandmother did. On her dozenth trip to the doorway, she finally saw them coming down the hallway, but Mrs. Taft was with them.

“Oh shucks!” Mandie muttered to herself.

“You certainly dressed in a hurry, Amanda,” Mrs. Taft said as she entered the room and went to sit by the fireplace.

“And you certainly do look pretty, dear,” Elizabeth added as she and John sat on a settee nearby.

“Thank you, Mother,” Mandie replied as she pushed back her long blond hair, which she had left hanging loose with a ribbon around it. “You look pretty yourself. You always do. And Grandmother looks as though she stepped out of a band box, like usual.”

Mrs. Taft smiled at Mandie and turned to Elizabeth to ask, “Just when are the Woodards due in?”

“Sometime tomorrow afternoon,” Elizabeth replied. Then she turned to Mandie and said, “You and I could go shopping in the morning before they get here if you'd like?”

“That would work out well because when Joe gets here, he and Amanda and I will go find a tree, and then tomorrow night we could all decorate it,” John Shaw said, smiling at Mandie.

Mandie hesitated slightly before she said, “Well, yes, we could do that.”

“And I suppose Uncle Ned, and possibly his family, will be coming to visit sometime during the holidays,” Mrs. Taft said.

“Oh yes,” Elizabeth began, “not only Uncle Ned but also—”

Mandie quickly interrupted as she asked, “Mother, I need to buy a present for Sallie. Maybe you could help me decide on something.”

Uncle Ned was Mandie's father's old Cherokee friend, and Sallie was Ned's granddaughter. When Jim Shaw died the year before, the old man had promised that he would watch over Mandie, and Uncle Ned had kept his promise. No matter where Mandie traveled, he followed, all the way to Europe, to President McKinley's inauguration, to New York, or wherever.