The Mandie Collection (15 page)

Liza nodded again, and Mandie ran into the parlor with Joe close behind. They looked at the Christmas tree, and every one of Mandie's presents was gone. The other presents were all there, but not Mandie's.

Mandie plopped down on the floor by the tree and cried.

Joe sat beside her and patted her hand. “Don't cry, Mandie. We'll find them,” he assured her.

“I don't know how,” Mandie sobbed. “We haven't been able to find any of them yet when they disappeared.”

“Somebody must really be heartless to keep doing this,” Joe said. “Come on. Let's start looking.”

Liza stood at the parlor door. “Want me to he'p?” she offered.

“Thank you, Liza,” Mandie said through her tears, “but Aunt Lou would want to know what you're doing, and we don't want anyone else to know about the missing presents until we find out who's taking them.”

“If I kin he'p, jes' you let me know, Missy,” Liza said as she left the room.

Joe stood and helped Mandie up. “Let's get started,” he said.

Listlessly, Mandie followed Joe around the house as they poked into every room and every hiding place they could think of. The library was the last room on their search upstairs.

As Mandie pushed open the door to the library, she looked up at the portrait of her Cherokee grandmother. “Joe,” she said, “if you don't
mind, I think I'll stay in here a few minutes to think. Why don't you go back downstairs and see what Hilda is doing?”

“I understand,” Joe replied, turning to go down the hallway. “I'll see you when you come back downstairs.”

Mandie went on into the library and closed the door. There were shelves on three sides of the room, running over with books. Uncle John's desk stood in front of a large stained-glass window, and on the opposite side of the room was an elaborate couch. On either side of her grandmother's picture over the mantelpiece, there were sconces on the wall, holding candles. But the draperies were open, and the sun was shining brightly, so there was no need to light them.

Mandie roamed around the room, stopping to stare at the portrait of her father's mother. Her grandmother had been a full-blooded Cherokee, and her great-grandfather had built a secret tunnel into this very house to hide the girl and her Indian family from the white men who were moving them all out of the territory in 1838. Mandie knew the story well now. She stood there studying the face of the young girl in the portrait and wondered what it would have been like to have her Cherokee grandmother alive now.

Mandie wandered over to the small door hidden behind a curtain in one corner. She pulled the curtain back and pushed on the door. To her surprise the door was not locked. She stepped inside the opening, which months earlier she had discovered was the entrance to the secret tunnel. Immediately the door swung shut! Fumbling in the dark, she realized there was no door handle on this side, and the latch had clicked shut.

Mandie's heart beat rapidly. It was dark in the tunnel, and she knew no one was anywhere near to let her out. She beat on the door a few times, then gave up. She would just have to make her way through the darkness down to the tunnel's exit in the woods behind the house. Then another thought worried her.
What if that's closed shut with snow, too
?

“I'll just have to go and see,” she said to herself, feeling her way down the many steps.

Soon she heard a scurrying sound around her feet and realized it must be mice. Breathlessly, she continued on, stomping her feet to keep the mice away from her.

As she got nearer the other end of the tunnel, suddenly there was a loud crash. She stopped and took a deep breath. Then she started quoting her favorite Bible verse, “What time I am afraid I will put my trust in thee.” She stood perfectly still for a few moments, holding her breath and listening. There was no other sound, so she hurried on.

“The outside door must be near now,” she told herself. But at that moment she stumbled into something that shuffled around her feet and legs.

She gasped with fright. In her mind she was saying,
I told God I would trust in Him, and look what I'm doing
. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped forward and ran head-on into the outside door of the tunnel. Breathing a sigh of relief, she felt around for the key to the outside door. It always hung on a nail nearby. She found the nail, but there was no key.

Mandie pounded on the door. “Somebody come and let me out!” she cried loudly.

But after there was no response, she finally gave up and sat down to rest in the darkness. As she sat, she felt something soft under her and began exploring. There seemed to be several different objects on the floor near her.

She got excited as she picked the things up and examined them with her fingers. “My presents!” She gasped, hugging them all close to her. “How did they get here?”

At intervals, she would get up and pound on the door with her fists; but when no one came, she would sit down again among her presents. It seemed she had been there for hours when a vague gleam of light appeared up the stairs behind her. She jumped up and squinted up the steps.

The light became a little brighter. Then a voice called her name.

“Joe! I'm down here,” she called excitedly as she made out his form in the light of the lamp he was carrying.

“Mandie, what on earth are you doing down here?” he asked, coming down the steps. As he got closer, he saw the scattered packages. “Don't tell me. Your presents!”

“Oh, Joe, the door shut on me up in the library, and I couldn't get back out,” Mandie explained, trembling. “And the key for this door is missing. And then I found my presents all over the floor.”

“When you didn't come back for so long I went up to the library to look for you,” Joe said. “You weren't there, but when I saw the curtain pulled back to the door of the tunnel, I came looking.” He set the lamp down on the floor to help her pick up presents.

“I'm so thankful you did,” Mandie said, trying to balance her armload. “I must have been in here for hours.”

When the two of them had picked everything up, Joe took the lamp to lead the way back upstairs into the house. “Oh, I forgot to tell you why I came looking for you,” he said. “Our parents are back, and—”

Mandie didn't hear another word. She raced ahead of Joe up the steps and arrived at the top, out of breath. “Wait a minute,” she said. “How are we going to get back out?”

Joe stepped ahead of her. “Don't worry,” he said. “I turned the latch back so it wouldn't lock.”

“Whew!” Mandie said, pushing through the door. Inside the library, she dropped all her presents on the floor and hurried downstairs, with Joe right behind.

In the parlor, Elizabeth Shaw, Mandie's beautiful blonde mother, was sitting on the settee next to Uncle John.

Mandie rushed to embrace her mother and then turned to hug her stepfather. “I'm so glad to see y'all,” she said, dropping onto a footstool in front of them. “I thought you'd never get home.”

Joe happily greeted his mother and father, who were sitting by the fire with Mrs. Taft. Then he sat nearby in an empty chair by the window.

Mandie gave her mother and Uncle John a somewhat jumbled account of what had been going on since she had come home from school for the holidays. Then she leaned back against her mother and said, “I'm so thankful you got home in time for Christmas. It's my very first Christmas with you, Mother,” she reminded her.

“I know, dear,” Elizabeth said, stroking her daughter's blonde hair. “That's why we made sure we got here before tomorrow.”

Uncle John patted Mandie on the shoulder. “We had to go on horseback a little ways, and then we got the train,” he explained. “Fortunately, we made it on time to meet the train's schedule.”

Mandie looked back at them. “I'm sorry that your friend died,” she said. “Couldn't Dr. Woodard doctor him and get him well?”

Dr. Woodard sat forward. “He was pretty old, Amanda,” he said, “and in bad health.”

“In fact,” Uncle John added, “he was so old that he knew my father when my father was young.”

“I wish I could have known him if he knew my grandfather,” Mandie said wistfully.

There was a lull in the conversation for a moment, and finally Elizabeth got up from the settee. “I'm tired after the long trip, dear,” she said to Mandie. “I have to go lie down awhile.”

“May I go upstairs with you, Mother?” Mandie asked, standing up.

“Let me rest awhile first, please,” Elizabeth replied. “I'll be back down for dinner, and then we'll talk some more.”

Mandie gave her mother a tight hug. “Please hurry back down,” she said.

Uncle John walked over and put his arm around Elizabeth as they both headed for the stairs.

Mandie ran over to him and looked up into his eyes. “Are you going, too, Uncle John?” she protested.

“I'm a little worn out, too,” he said, giving her a hug. “But I promise we won't rest too long.”

Dr. and Mrs. Woodard rose and started to leave the room, too. Mandie could tell Joe didn't want his parents to leave, either, but he didn't say anything.

“We'll all be back down for the noon meal,” Dr. Woodard assured them.

After they left the room, Mandie turned to Joe. “I wonder where the Burnses are. And Mr. Bond,” she said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Burns went home,” Joe replied. “And Jason Bond is tending to the horses in the barn.”

“I just remembered. The presents!” Mandie exclaimed. “I have to see what kind of shape they're in this time. Come on.” Mandie led the way back to the library where she had dropped them on the floor.

As they picked up each one and examined it, they found that the wrapping paper had not been disturbed.

“Thank goodness I don't have to wrap them again,” Mandie said. “Will you help me put them back under the Christmas tree?”

“Mandie, I don't think I'd do that if I were you,” Joe cautioned. “Every time you put anything under the tree, it disappears. Why don't
you lock them in your trunk or somewhere until tomorrow morning when we exchange gifts?”

Mandie thought for a minute. “You're right, Joe,” she agreed. “Let's take them to my room.”

With her presents safely stored away, Mandie felt relieved. Her mother and Uncle John were home, and when her mother came back downstairs, Mandie would find out what the surprise was.

Later that afternoon as she sat alone with her mother near the fireplace in the sun room, she eagerly asked about the surprise, but her mother refused to tell her.

“I said the surprise is for Christmas,” Elizabeth said, smiling at her daughter. “Tomorrow is Christmas Day. I'll tell you then.”

“Mother, please?” Mandie begged. “I've been waiting all this time to find out what it is, and everybody else seems to know, but they won't say. Please tell me.”

“No, dear,” her mother insisted. “We'll save it for tomorrow morning, Christmas Day.”

That night after a special supper, Christmas carolers came by, and the family all joined in the singing. And later there was hot cocoa, coffee, and cookies in the parlor by the Christmas tree. Lots of other presents had mysteriously appeared beneath the tree by then.

But through all the festivities, it was hard for Mandie to join in the Christmas spirit.

When she went to bed, she tossed and turned, wishing she could sleep the night away so she could find out what the surprise was. Finally she fell asleep, trying to figure it all out.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE BIG SURPRISE!

“ ‘For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. . . .' ” Uncle John read from the second chapter of Luke as they were all gathered in the parlor Christmas morning.

The servants were all present, and after the Bible reading, Uncle John handed out their pay raises and thanked them for a year of hard work. Then presents were exchanged. Mandie had brought hers back downstairs earlier that morning, adding them to the pile under the tree.

Each person gave everyone else some little something for Christmas, so the gift-giving took a lot of time. There were many ohs and ahs of pleasure as the gifts were unwrapped.

When the last one was handed out, Aunt Lou stepped forward to address Elizabeth. “We folks have a big present fo' you and Mistuh John, but we has to give it to you later,” she said.

“Thank you, Aunt Lou,” Elizabeth replied, “but I hope you didn't go to a lot of trouble and expense.”

“No, ma'am, we made it all,” the old housekeeper assured her. She turned back to the other servants. “It's time fo' some breakfus',” she said. “Git goin' now.”

As the servants left the room, Mandie sat on the rug fingering the sand-dollar necklace Tommy Patton had given her. Finally she pulled the paper off the present from her mother and Uncle John, revealing a
complete set of encyclopedias. She gasped in delight. “Oh, thank you, Mother and Uncle John. I'll read every one of these.”

John and Elizabeth laughed.

“That's exactly what we thought you'd do,” Elizabeth teased. “You are always so curious about everything. You'll find the answers to many, many things in those books.”

“Is this what the big surprise was?” Mandie asked, somewhat disappointed.

Elizabeth stood. “No, there's more,” she said. “Now that all of us have opened our presents, let's get on into the breakfast room and eat. Then Mandie, you and I will have our little private session, dear.”

Mandie could hardly eat a bite. She had received so many nice gifts, and now she was eager to know what her mother's big surprise was.

Finally, after breakfast, Mandie joined her mother in the sun room. She sat down next to her on the settee by the window, holding her breath in anticipation.

“Amanda, dear, I have a wonderful surprise for you,” Elizabeth began, putting an arm around her daughter. “Since I have never discussed this kind of thing with you before, it's hard for me to find the right words.” She paused.