The Mandie Collection (12 page)

“We know,” said Uncle John, “but they won't be bothering you or anyone else around here. They were ordered out of the territory and the Cherokees are all watching to make sure they leave.”

Everyone joined in a garbled explanation of what had happened since the Catawba men took Joe.

Joe was furious when he heard that Mandie and Sallie had also been kidnapped. “It's good they will be gone by the time I can get out of this bed. I'd like to take care of them myself,” he said.

Just then Tsa'ni and Dimar came in, having relayed their message to the other Cherokees.

When Mandie saw Tsa'ni, she knew she had to ease her guilty conscience. Embarrassed, she slowly walked over to him. “Tsa'ni, I must beg your forgiveness,” she began, clearing her throat nervously. She never knew what reaction she would get from the Indian boy.

“For what?” Tsa'ni asked sullenly.

“I wrongly accused you of tearing down the hospital walls and of knowing where Joe was. I know now that I was wrong, very wrong. I'm sorry, Tsa'ni. I ask you to forgive me,” she said.

The others listened silently.

“You will get your hospital built,” Tsa'ni replied. “I know now that the hospital is necessary for the advancement of the Cherokees. We must catch up with and pass the white man. For many, many years the Cherokees have been held back and had no chance to improve. No more. The hospital will be built,” Tsa'ni declared.

“But, Tsa'ni, will you forgive me?” Mandie repeated.

“Accusations of the white man do not matter to me because—” Tsa'ni paused. He hung his head and then straightened up to look Mandie in the eye. “I cannot be angry with you because, after all, you are my cousin. I am sorry, too.” He grinned and held out his hand.

Mandie gripped his hand tightly and looked upward.
Dear God
, she prayed silently,
please forgive me
. Looking back at Tsa'ni, she smiled. “Thank you, Tsa'ni, for forgiving me. I love you, my cousin.”

Tsa'ni stuck his hand in his pocket and sauntered off to the other side of the room.

Uncle Ned put his arm around Mandie's shoulders and steered her to another corner of the room. “Papoose must think with head,” he said softly. “Think before Papoose does things. Over and over Papoose do something then think. Backward way. Must think first. Must remember. Think first. Think first.”

Mandie reached up to grasp his hand on her shoulder. “I will try, Uncle Ned. I will try real hard,” she promised.

“Big Book say not judge,” the old Indian reminded her.

“I know. ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,' ” she quoted the Bible verse. “I'm going to do my best, and I hope you'll help me,” she said, smiling up at him.

“I help,” said Uncle Ned. “I promise Jim Shaw I watch over Papoose when he go to happy hunting ground. I keep promise.”

“I love you, Uncle Ned,” said Mandie as they embraced.

A few minutes later, Mandie turned her attention back to Joe and his father. “Dr. Woodard, how long will it take Joe to recover?” she asked.

“He should be well enough to go home in a day or two,” the doctor replied.

“Oh, that's wonderful!” said Mandie. Relieved that Joe was going to be all right, she looked over at her mother and Uncle John. “Can we still go to Charleston?” she asked hopefully.

“I don't see any reason why we can't leave first thing in the morning,” Uncle John replied.

Mandie could hardly contain her excitement. At last she would get to see the great big ocean!

MANDIE

AND THE CHARLESTON

PHANTOM

With Thanks

to

J.M.B.

CONTENTS

MANDIE AND THE CHARLESTON PHANTOM

Chapter   1  Mean Words, Hurt Feelings

Chapter   2  Liza's Secret

Chapter   3  To Charleston at Last!

Chapter   4  The Great Big Wonderful Ocean!

Chapter   5  The Scary Widow's Walk

Chapter   6  Night Noises and Ghost Stories

Chapter   7  The Mysterious Appearance

Chapter   8  The Phantom in the Moonlight

Chapter   9  Trouble on the Pier

Chapter 10  How Much Does Josephine Know?

Chapter 11  Mossy Manor

Chapter 12  Ghosts From the Past

Chapter 13  Rice Fields

Chapter 14  The Deserted Cabins

Chapter 15  The Mystery of the Phantom

Chapter 16  The Truth Comes Out

“Be ye angry, and sin not:

let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”

Ephesians 4:26

CHAPTER ONE

MEAN WORDS, HURT FEELINGS

Mandie Shaw stared at her friend Joe in disbelief. “Why shouldn't I go to Charleston?” she asked, rocking her Uncle John's porch swing back and forth in irritation.

“Because you're
my
friend,” Joe insisted, “and I don't think it's proper for you to go visiting another boy when you promised to marry me someday,” he said, slapping his knees with his thin, long-fingered hands for emphasis.

“Joe!” Mandie exclaimed. “I never knew you could be so selfish! I may have promised to marry you, but I was a lot younger then. It will be a long time before we will be grown up enough to get married. I can't promise to never talk to another boy. I don't mind if you talk to other girls.”

“Oh, you don't, huh? Well, what about that time you got jealous of Polly Cornwallis because I was nice to her?”

“I didn't get jealous!” Mandie protested, her blue eyes flashing.

“Oh, yes you did,” Joe argued.

Mandie's temper rose out of control. She stood up and shook her long skirt. “Joe Woodard, you are the most stupid, selfish, pigheaded boy I've ever met. If you want to get mad because I am going to Charleston to visit Tommy Patton's family and to see the ocean, then
you can just get mad!” she yelled. “I
am
going. I don't care what you say!” She whirled angrily and disappeared inside the house.

Pausing in the hallway, she took a deep breath. Just who did Joe think he was, trying to order her around that way? He wasn't going to run her life and tell her what she could and couldn't do. She took another deep breath and ran up the staircase to her room. Her white kitten, Snowball, followed.

In her room, Mandie picked up Snowball and flopped across the blue silk bedspread on her bed. Before, she had been excited about the opportunity to travel with her mother and Uncle John (who was also her stepfather) to Charleston, South Carolina. This was her chance to see the ocean for the first time. Why did Joe have to put a damper on her mood like that? After all, she was only twelve years old, not old enough to make a marriage commitment!

I'll just ignore him if that's the way he wants to be, she thought. I've been waiting for this trip too long to let him spoil it. I'm going to have a good time with Tommy and his family and forget all about Joe Woodard, she decided.

Mandie had first met Tommy Patton when the boys from his school came to visit her school in Asheville, North Carolina. But Tommy's parents had been friends of Elizabeth (Mandie's mother) and Uncle John for many years, and they invited the Shaws to come to Charleston for a visit.

Unfortunately, their stay would have to be a lot shorter than they had planned because Mandie's family, Joe, and his father, Dr. Woodard, had just arrived in Franklin, North Carolina, that afternoon from investigating some vandalism at the Cherokee hospital construction site.

Some time earlier, while exploring an old cave, Mandie and her friends had found a fortune in gold that belonged to the Cherokee Indians. That gold was paying for the Cherokees' hospital.

After they all returned to Franklin, Dr. Woodard had immediately left to make his rounds in the town. Medical doctors were scarce in western North Carolina around the year 1900, and the doctor covered a lot of territory to take care of the sick.

As Mandie lay on her bed, the blue-flowered ceramic clock on the mantelpiece struck six. Mandie jumped up. She glanced in the floor-length mirror and straightened her rumpled pink organdy dress. Then
smoothing her long blonde braid, she hurried downstairs to the dining room and met Liza just inside the French doors.

The young Negro girl, hurrying toward the table with a bowl of steaming corn on the cob, stopped and gasped. “Lawsy mercy, Missy, I done forgot,” she said. “I'se s'posed to tell you dat yo' ma say fo' you to be in de parlor at six o'clock, and it already be six o'clock, ain't it?”

“That's all right, Liza. I'll go to the parlor right away,” Mandie said, turning back into the long, wide hallway.

Hurrying through the double sliding doors, Mandie found her mother and Uncle John on a settee talking to Dr. Woodard. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Joe sulking in a big chair in the corner. Ignoring his stares, Mandie walked toward her mother.

“Amanda, we wanted to talk a little before we go in to eat,” Elizabeth Shaw told her daughter. “Sit down for a minute, dear. Dr. Woodard has been telling us about his visit with Hilda this afternoon.”

Mandie perched on the edge of a nearby chair and leaned forward. “You saw Hilda, Dr. Woodard?” She felt goosebumps rise on her arms as she remembered the excitement of finding the frightened young girl hiding in the school attic.

“Yes,” the doctor nodded slowly. “I went by the sanatorium to see how she was. I thought you might like to know she actually asked for you,” Dr. Woodard told her.

“You mean she is talking now?” Mandie cried. “Oh, Dr. Woodard, she has been healed. I've been hoping and praying she would be able to talk soon.”

“Well, I wouldn't say she is completely healed. She still needs a lot of loving care, but she is improving. And the doctors at the sanatorium are thinking about letting her leave soon if they can find just the right family to take care of her. Her parents simply are not willing or able to care for her properly.”

Mandie's eyes grew wide in excitement. “Imagine! Hilda talking!”

“Yes,” the doctor replied. “In fact, her exact words were, ‘Where is Mandie? When will she bring me another new dress?' ”

Mandie laughed. “She is better! Just think of how she was when we found her—all frightened, couldn't say a word. But she did love my dresses! Dr. Woodard, would you take her one for me?”

“I'll be glad to, Amanda,” the doctor said.

“Thank you, Dr. Woodard. After supper, I'll pick one out,” Mandie told him. “And as soon as we get back to Asheville, I'll go see her.”

“You may not have time, dear,” Elizabeth reminded her. “We've been delayed already because of the vandalism at the hospital. Even with the extra days Miss Prudence allowed you, we'll have to push to return you to school on time.”

“Maybe y'all shouldn't go to Charleston,” Joe said from his corner.

Everyone turned to look at him.

Uncle John frowned. “Joe, you know this trip was planned quite a while ago,” he said.

Mandie opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it. She said nothing.

“Yes, sir,” Joe replied meekly.

Aunt Lou, the enormous Negro housekeeper, appeared in the doorway. A big white apron covered a plain dark house dress. “Miz 'Lizbeth, de dinner be on de table,” she announced.

“We're coming, Aunt Lou. Thank you,” Elizabeth said, rising. “Has Mr. Bond returned yet?”

“Yessum, he done brought de tickets back from de depot. He waitin' in de kitchen fo' y'all,” the old Negro woman replied.

“Tell him we'll meet him in the dining room, please, Aunt Lou,” Elizabeth said.

Jason Bond, caretaker at the Shaws' home, met them at the table. He smiled at Mandie. “Well, all you have to do now is go down and get on the train tomorrow.”

Mandie grinned back at him and took her place across the table from Joe. “I'm so excited. I won't sleep tonight!” she exclaimed. “Mr. Jason, I wish you could go with us.”

“I'm a mountain man. Don't care about all that water out there at the edge of the country,” Mr. Bond said, shaking his head. “Never had no desire to see it.”

Liza hurried in with a tray of hot biscuits and placed them next to Mandie. Bending slightly forward, she whispered, “I knows somethin' you don't knows.” She rolled her eyes and glanced at the others.

“What?” Mandie whispered back. “Tell you latuh,” Liza whispered. Then she danced out of the room.

Mandie hurried through dinner. She couldn't wait to find out what Liza's mysterious message was.

CHAPTER TWO

LIZA'S SECRET

After dinner, Liza was helping Aunt Lou clean up in the kitchen. “Liza, git dem dishes from de table now,” Aunt Lou ordered. “They's all done an' we's got to git movin.' ”

With a wink at Mandie, Liza grabbed the large dishpan and hurried into the empty dining room.

Mandie followed right behind her. “What do you know, Liza?” Mandie asked the girl.

“Well, it's like dis,” Liza said, beginning to collect the dirty dishes from the table. “I overheerd somethin' you might jes' want to know about.”

“Liza, what is it?” Mandie persisted. “Tell me.”

“Promise you won't be tellin' I said so?” Liza asked, sticking her finger into the chocolate pudding Joe left untouched by his plate. “Mmm, dat's good!” She took another taste.

“I promise I won't tell that you told me whatever it is you know,” Mandie said. “Now what is it, Liza? Mother will be looking for me. We have to finish packing.”

Liza's eyes widened. “I sees Missy Polly nextdo' talkin' to de doctuh boy in de yard a while ago,” she teased.

“Polly talking to Joe? What were they talking about?”