The Mandie Collection (41 page)

“We could try,” Mandie insisted.

Uncle John spoke from across the room. “Are you two ready to go bring in a Christmas tree?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” Mandie agreed and explained to Joe, “Polly Cornwallis invited herself to go with us.”

“Well, well!” Joe said with a big sigh.

“Uncle John, should we go get Polly now?” Mandie asked as her uncle rose from his chair.

“Why don't you ask Liza to run over and let her know we are ready to go while we go get our coats?” John Shaw replied. “Ask Liza to tell her we'll be in the barn. I have to get the ax and some rope.”

“All right,” Mandie agreed as she left the room and went to the kitchen.

She found Liza stacking dirty dishes in the sink while Aunt Lou and Jenny brought everything in from the dining room table.

“Liza, Uncle John said to ask you to let Polly know we are ready to go get the trees and for her to meet us in the barn,” Mandie said.

Liza stopped her work, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Dat Miss Sweet Thing sho' gwine git things poppin'. But don't you worry none, Missy 'Manda, 'cause she might disappear agin.”

“Oh, Liza, please hurry,” Mandie said impatiently. “And please tell Polly to hurry, too. As soon as we get these trees, Joe and I are going on a treasure hunt, but, of course, don't tell Polly that.”

“I knows you wants huh to go back home when y'all gits de trees, but I heahs tell dat Miss Sweet Thing and huh mama gwine come over heah tonight to he'p fancy up de tree,” Liza said.

“That's right, Liza. Uncle John asked them,” Mandie replied.

“So when you and de doctuh son gwine on dis heah huntin' treasure? Where dis treasure be anyhow?” Liza asked as she stared at Mandie.

“I have no idea where the treasure is or what it might be. You saw that present I found on the doorstep this morning. Well, as soon as Joe saw it, he declared it was a treasure map,” Mandie explained.

“Den how you gwine find it?” Liza asked.

“Oh, Liza, I've got to go up to my room and get my coat,” Mandie said, turning to leave the kitchen. “Please hurry and tell Polly we're ready. Thank you.” She smiled back at Liza as she quickly left the room.

Mandie rushed to her room, put on her hat, coat, and gloves, and hurried back downstairs and out to the barn to join Uncle John and Joe. As she came to the open door and looked inside the building, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Polly Cornwallis was already there and was hovering around Joe, who was assisting John Shaw in taking the ax down from its rack. How did she get there so fast?

“I'm ready,” Mandie announced from the doorway.

“So am I,” Polly said as she turned to look at Mandie. “This is going to be exciting.”

Mandie frowned and asked, “Exciting?”

“Oh yes,” Polly began explaining. “Mr. Shaw said we're going to walk through his woods and pick out any tree we want, and I have decided exactly what kind of a tree I want for our house. It's got to be—”

“Let's get on our way now,” John Shaw interrupted. “It looks like snow, and we want to get back before it starts.” He went out the door with the ax over his shoulder.

Polly walked close to Joe as he carried the roll of rope and left the barn. Mandie stepped to his other side.

“Snow,” Polly repeated. “I think it would be so delightful to scrunch along in the snow, don't you, Joe?”

Joe didn't even look at her as he said, “Not today.”

The three young people followed John Shaw through his acres and acres of land until he came to the wooded area. Then he stopped, turned around, and said, “Beginning here, look around and decide what you want for the house, Amanda, and, Polly, you choose one for yours.”

Mandie quickly looked up at Joe and asked, “Will you help me find one that will reach the ceiling? I'm not sure how to judge the height.”

“That won't be hard to do,” Joe replied as he stepped ahead and pointed to the left. “All those trees in that cluster over there are more or less the right height.”

“I'd say you're right,” John Shaw agreed as he looked at the trees.

“Then the next thing I'd like is to have one that has thick limbs that fan out in graduated heights,” Mandie explained as she walked through the group of trees.

“Well, what about mine? Aren't y'all going to help me find one?” Polly asked with a pout.

“Of course,” John Shaw told her. “Just tell us what you want.”

“I suppose whatever Mandie is getting will be all right for our house, too,” Polly replied as she inspected the trees.

“Do you want pine or cedar, Mandie?” Joe asked as he and Mandie pushed their way through the thick growth of trees.

“Cedar. It smells so good,” Mandie replied. She stopped to touch the limbs of a cedar. “This one looks about right, doesn't it?”

“I'd say so,” Joe agreed. “Want me to cut that one down for you?”

“Please,” Mandie replied with a big smile.

Joe took the ax from John Shaw and began chopping into the trunk of the cedar as he moved around it. Polly stopped her search to stand and watch with Mandie.

As the trunk was finally severed, Uncle John and Joe threw ropes around it and pulled it down from its tight fit between the other trees.

“Oh, it's going to be beautiful when we decorate it,” Mandie exclaimed as she watched it fall to the ground.

“Now, Miss Polly, where's the one you want?” John Shaw asked.

“Let me look a minute,” Polly said, wandering through the trees. She stopped at one and said, “I believe this one is about right.”

“Then we'll take it down,” John Shaw said as he reached for the ax from Joe. He was about to land a blow on the trunk when she changed her mind.

“No, no, wait just a minute. I believe it's too skinny,” Polly said as she moved on among the trees. “Maybe this one here.” She looked up at the height. “No, I believe it's too tall.”

“How about this one over here?” John Shaw asked, indicating a cedar almost identical to the one Mandie had chosen.

Polly looked at it, screwing up her mouth, and tossed back her long, dark hair. “I think it's too out of shape or something,” she finally said and walked on.

Mandie, Joe, and John Shaw stood there watching and waiting for her to make a decision. And all at once a shower of snowflakes fell through the trees.

“Polly, please make your mind up. It's snowing. We have to go home,” Mandie called to her as she wiped the snowflakes from her face.

Polly stopped to look upward and reached out her gloved hands for the flakes. “Oh, isn't it beautiful? I was hoping it would snow,” she said.

“I'm sorry, Miss Polly, but we do have to be getting back to the house,” John Shaw told her firmly.

Polly looked at his stern face and went directly back to the first tree she had selected and said, “Then I'll just take this one.”

John Shaw quickly began swinging the ax before she changed her mind again, and no one spoke until the tree was swinging free.

“At last,” Mandie said under her breath.

Uncle John and Joe attached the rope to the tree, and between the four of them they managed to carry the trees to the yard behind the Shaw house. The snowflakes became thicker and were fast covering everything in white.

“Let's just put ours on the back porch and run Polly's over to her house,” John Shaw told Joe.

Polly hesitated and said, “I suppose I'd better go on home and show you where to put it. I was going to go in with you, Mandie, but I'll be back tonight with my mother.” She started after John Shaw and Joe, who were already moving across the yard with the tree.

“All right, Polly,” Mandie called to her as she went in the back door of the house. She stomped the snow from her feet and brushed the flakes from her coat and hat and gloves. She removed them and hung them on pegs by the back door in the hallway.

Liza opened the kitchen door and looked out into the hallway. “I be thinkin' I be hearin' sumpin' out heah,” she said. “Where dat Miss Sweet Thing?”

Mandie laughed and said, “She went on home to show Uncle John and Joe where to put her tree. Ours is on the back porch. She said she'd be back tonight with her mother.” Mandie went into the kitchen and straight to the warmth of the big iron cookstove.

“But she ain't a'comin' tonight,” Liza said with a big grin. “Huh mama dun sent word. Got unexpected comp'ny. Cain't come.” She laughed and danced around the room.

Mandie looked at her with a big smile and said, “You aren't joking, are you?”

“Nope, ain't comin',” Liza replied. “Told you I could make huh disappear.”

Mandie laughed and said, “But you didn't make her disappear. They have company, so they can't come over here because of that.”

“But it's unexpected comp'ny,” Liza reminded her.

Mandie suddenly remembered her white cat. She had not seen him since before the meal at noon. She looked around the room and asked, “Liza, do you know where Snowball is?”

“I sho' does, and I ain't tellin' nobody else,” Liza said. Then she bent closer to Mandie and whispered, “He be on Miz Gramma's bed fast asleep.”

“On Grandmother's bed! Oh, she won't like that. I'd better go and get him,” Mandie said as she started to leave the kitchen.

“Wait! Ain't no hurry! Miz Gramma ain't come back home yet,” Liza told her.

Mandie paused at the door and said, “So Grandmother is still out with Mrs. Willimon.” And then she quickly added, “But it's snowing outside and she will probably be home any minute now, so I'd better get him out of her room.”

She rushed out into the hallway and up the stairs. She didn't want to have her grandmother upset because she still had to tell her that the Guyers were coming to visit. And that was going to be enough to put Mrs. Taft in a bad mood.

CHAPTER FIVE

GETTING READY

The door to Mrs. Taft's room was slightly ajar. Mandie quickly pushed it open and headed for the tall bed on the other side of the huge room.

“Snowball! Snowball!” she called as she went. “Come here. You know you aren't supposed to go in Grandmother's room. Snowball!” She looked on the counterpane, but her white cat was not there. She quickly searched the room and decided he was not there.

She left the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind her, and hurried down the long hallway toward her room. Halfway there she met her grandmother, who had just reached the top of the steps.

“Oh, Grandmother, I didn't know you were back,” Mandie said nervously, hoping the lady had not seen her come out of her bedroom.

“I thought I'd better get back while the snow has stopped—just in case it starts again,” Mrs. Taft said, removing her hat as she hurried on toward her room.

Mandie only heard the words that the snow had stopped, and she raced for the stairs. If she and Joe were going to try to decipher that treasure map, they'd better begin now. She met Joe at the bottom of the steps.

“The snow stopped,” she said to him.

“I know. Mr. Shaw and I just got back from Polly's house, and
there's hardly a trace of the white stuff outside now,” Joe told her. He was carrying his coat and hat.

“But it might snow again, so let's get started with that treasure map,” Mandie told him. “I'll get my coat and things. I left them in the back hallway.” She started in that direction.

“Wait, Mandie!” Joe quickly said. As she stopped and turned around, he asked, “How are we going to figure out any treasure map from that mess in the box you received?”

“We'll have to study it real hard,” Mandie said. She walked on. “I'll be right back.”

She quickly got her coat and hat and put them on as she came back to where Joe was sitting on the bottom step.

“Let's go get the box and take it out on the porch,” Mandie told him.

Joe followed her to the parlor where Elizabeth, John Shaw, and the Woodards were sitting by the fire. Mandie hurried over to the table, picked up the box, and said, “We're going outside.”

“All right, dear, but don't go too far away. We may have more company coming, you know,” Elizabeth told her.

Mandie gasped. Did her mother believe the Guyers were coming that afternoon? She and Joe would just have to stay within sight of the house so she could watch for them. “All right, Mother,” she said as she and Joe left the parlor. Joe hurried to open the front door for Mandie. With her arms full of wrapping paper and the box, she was trying to hold it as level as possible so the contents would not be disturbed.

“Now, let's look this thing over real good,” Mandie said. She sat down on the swing on the porch and Joe joined her. She set the box between them, removed the wrapping paper, and folded it, tucking it in the corner of the seat.

Joe bent forward to look at the contents. “I don't see a thing but a lot of dirt, weeds, holly leaves, berries, and some little red ribbons, Mandie,” he said.

“But it all must mean something. Whoever made this must have had some idea as to what it is,” Mandie said, frowning as she concentrated on the stuff. “I still think those little dents in the dirt represent roads and those red ribbons are landmarks along the way.”

“If that's so, then where is the dead end, the place where the treasure should be?” Joe asked, looking at her.

Mandie thought for a moment and then looked out across the huge front yard. Signs of the snow were gone except for white powder here and there. “It's probably the last ribbon along the way,” she said thoughtfully, looking back down at the contents of the box. “You see, if you went along one of the dents, or a road, you would pass two of the ribbons in order to get to the third ribbon.”

“Then where do we begin?” Joe asked.

“Well, we can start right here,” Mandie said, picking up the box and going down the long walkway. “We walk down to the gate here. And that could be the first red ribbon.” She stopped and looked around as Joe followed.