The Mandie Collection (40 page)

Mandie never did care for fine clothes, expensive possessions, and money, so those things weren't hard to leave. It was just Uncle John and her mother—why couldn't her mother understand?—and Aunt Lou and Liza and the others. . . .

The only piece of jewelry she would take was a gold locket her uncle had given her. And she was only taking that because it had her father's picture in it. Taking the necklace out of her jewelry box, she fastened it around her neck, then dropped it out of sight inside the bodice of her dress.

She sat down on the floor and tried on her old cotton stockings. They were still usable, but her old shoes wouldn't even fit on her feet.

“Guess I'll have to wear the ones I had on,” Mandie mumbled to herself. “I have too far to go to try walking barefooted.” She examined her sensible but expensive leather shoes and put them back on.

As she stood up again, she felt something heavy in the big pocket of her dress. Sticking her hand inside, she brought out the worn New Testament her father had given her before she was even old enough to read.

She knew what was written inside, but she opened it anyway and traced her father's big, scrawling handwriting with her finger. “For my darling daughter, Amanda Elizabeth Shaw,” she read. “With all my love forever, Jim Shaw.” Tears rushed into her blue eyes, and she closed the book tight, hugging it to her.

“With all my love, forever,” Mandie repeated to herself. “Oh, Daddy, I know you loved me with all your heart. If only Mother did.”

Suddenly the screams of the baby filled the air. Evidently her mother had opened the windows again. Mandie dropped everything and ran to close all the windows in her room to cut down on the noise. Snowball followed her around.

As she closed the last window, she noticed the big full moon rising through the trees in the distance. “Snowball, the moon is coming up,” she told her kitten.

She stopped to think for a moment and then said aloud, “Guess I'd better leave some kind of note so Mother won't worry.” Walking over to the little desk in her room, she picked up her school notebook and pulled out a sheet of paper. After some thinking, she wrote, “Gone to live with my Cherokee kinspeople.”

Holding up the note to look at it, she said, “I think that's enough. I don't even need to sign it. Mother will know who wrote it.”

She carefully laid the sheet of paper in the middle of her bed on the blue silk bedspread. It would be in plain view when someone opened the door to her room.

Mandie stooped and picked up the flour sack. After stuffing into it the few belongings she was taking, she put the rest of her things away in the drawer. Then she went back to sit by the closed window. As she looked out into the darkness, she noticed that the baby's crying had stopped.

She thought through her plan. Everything was packed. All she had to do was take her flour sack and Snowball and slip out of the house at midnight. Mandie wouldn't let herself think about how her mother would feel when she found her gone. She focused on her Cherokee kinspeople. She was positive they would welcome her.

Maybe someday she would come back to her mother—after that baby had grown up enough to stop all that crying. Then her mother would have time for her again.

As Mandie sat there thinking, her eyes began to moisten. She realized that her running away would mean no trip to Europe. She and her grandmother and Celia had been planning this trip for quite some time. Somehow she hoped they would understand.

I should at least write them a letter, telling them I can't go
, she thought. Crossing the room, she picked up her notebook, then stopped, setting it down again. Snowball rubbed around her ankles, looking up at her. Mandie picked him up. “I can't write them any letters,” she said aloud. “How would I mail them?”

Sighing heavily, she returned to the window and petted her kitten in her lap. “Mother will tell them, I'm sure,” she said sadly. “After all, she said if my behavior didn't improve, I couldn't go to Europe anyway.”

As Mandie stared out into the darkness, she began to feel hungry. When her mother had confined her to her room, that meant missing supper as well. Lifting her kitten's head, she looked right into his face. “Snowball,” she said, “there is one important thing I forgot all about—food! We've got to have some food. It's a long way to Bird-town, and we'll sure get hungry. What will I do?”

She thought a moment, then said, “I know. When we leave, we'll just go through the kitchen and see what we can find to take with us. That way I won't have to go downstairs twice and run the risk of someone seeing me in this old dress.”

As Mandie leaned back and waited, her thoughts churned with questions. What if someone caught her before she even left? What if something happened to her when she was out in the woods all alone? What if her mother sent word to the Cherokees and made her come back?

Mandie wouldn't let herself think about those things.

When the little clock on the mantelpiece struck the midnight hour, Mandie rose and took one good look around the beautiful room she
was leaving behind. Then picking up her flour sack and her kitten, she quietly opened the door to the hallway.

There was no sign of a light in any of the rooms, but the full moon shone through the windows in the hallway and on the landing. There was no one in sight.

Mandie held Snowball up to her face and spoke softly into his ear. “We have to be very quiet, Snowball,” she whispered.

Snowball rubbed his ear against her face.

Mandie knew where all the creaks in the staircase were, so she slowly, carefully made her way down without a sound. Then she hurried into the kitchen. It was even brighter in there because there were more windows to let in the moonlight.

Setting Snowball down on the floor, she put her flour sack on the table and looked through the pie safe. Aunt Lou always put the leftovers in there.

Carefully opening the door, Mandie examined the contents of its shelves. There was one whole pie, probably apple, but that would be too messy to take with her. She also found a large bowl of biscuits and cornbread left from supper. And there was a lot of cheese. Without taking time to look through the other food, she decided on the cheese and the bread.

“What am I going to put it in?” she whispered to herself as she looked around the room.

She spotted Aunt Lou's big white apron hanging on a hook on the back of the door. Quickly taking it down, she spread it out on the table and stacked the bread and cheese in the middle of it. Then she rolled it up and stuck it into her flour sack with her clothes.

Suddenly, Mandie panicked. She couldn't see her kitten anywhere. “Snowball,” she called in a whisper, “where are you? Come here.” She stooped to look for him.

Just then the kitten darted across the room from the direction of the big fireplace.

Mandie quickly scooped him up, grabbed her flour sack and hurried to the back door. Never stopping for a moment, Mandie ran for the trees at the far side of the yard. Then she made her way on down to the road, staying in the shadows.

Grasping the flour sack with one hand and Snowball with the other, she hurried through the woods. The kitten clung to her dress in fright.

At the edge of town Mandie had to stop to catch her breath. Even though Uncle John's house had disappeared from view long ago, she looked back in the direction she had come. Standing under a huge tree out of the moonlight, she thought about what might happen when someone found her note.

Liza was the one who usually came to wake her for breakfast. Mandie could imagine her running and screaming to Elizabeth with the news.

On the other hand, maybe her mother would come into Mandie's room first. Elizabeth would probably rush to Mr. Bond and demand that he and Abraham get out and find her at once. Mr. Bond probably wouldn't be shocked because he knew that she had run away before to come to her uncle's house.

And when Aunt Lou heard about it, she would probably fuss and fume and say she wished she could get her hands on “her chile.”

Mandie knew these were all probablies. She couldn't know what would happen back at Uncle John's house. But she knew one thing for sure. She was going all the way to Bird-town. She was not going to go back.

CHAPTER FIVE

SCARY NIGHT!

Mandie walked for hours before she stopped to rest again. When she came upon a clearing in the middle of the thick woods, she found a big old log that made a comfortable seat in the bright moonlight.

Of course Snowball wanted down the minute Mandie stopped, but she was afraid to release him. He might run away.

“You can't get down, Snowball,” Mandie told him.

Still the white kitten squirmed and squirmed, trying to get loose. Figuring he would sit still to eat, she opened her flour sack, unrolled Aunt Lou's apron, and broke off a hunk of cheese. Laying the cheese on the log beside her, she set the kitten next to it. Snowball sniffed the cheese and immediately began eating.

As she started to roll the apron back up, she noticed that it had unusually long apron strings because Aunt Lou was so large. Suddenly she had an idea. “Forgive me, Aunt Lou,” she said into the air, quickly ripping the strings from the apron. “I'll get you another one someday, somehow. I promise.”

Then knotting the strings together, Mandie fashioned a kind of harness and leash and slipped it around her kitten's neck. Snowball didn't fight it because he was too busy eating.

“Hurry up, Snowball,” she urged. “You should have had that little old piece of cheese eaten by now.”

As Mandie nibbled on some cheese and bread that she had kept out for herself, she jumped at every little sound in the woods.

“I know what I'm doing is not exactly right,” she told Snowball. It was the first time she even admitted it to herself. “But what
is
the right thing to do in a situation like this? My mother is so wrapped up in that baby she doesn't have time for me anymore. After she gets over the shock of finding me gone, I'm sure she won't mind too much.”

She ran her hand over Snowball's back. “Besides,” she continued, “I just can't stand that screaming day and night. There must be something wrong with that baby to make him yell like that. I don't know how my mother stands it.”

Suddenly a slight sound caught Mandie's ear. She thought she heard a twig snap and some leaves rustle. She quickly glanced around the clearing. Grabbing her kitten and her flour sack, she held her breath and waited for another noise, hoping it wouldn't come.

So softly that no one could have heard her, Mandie tried to comfort herself with her favorite Bible verse. “What time I am afraid I will put my trust in thee,” she whispered. Then she drew a deep breath.

Somehow Snowball managed to pull free from her hand and jump down. Immediately he started wriggling to get free from the harness. Mandie held tight to the other end of the leash.

She reached down and picked up her white kitten. “Come on, Snowball. We've got to get a move on,” she whispered.

As soon as the kitten finished eating, Mandie untied the harness and stuck it in her pocket. “We need to be a long, long way from home by sunup. Hold on to my shoulder and we'll get going.”

Looking around, Mandie decided they were far enough away now to leave the woods and follow the banks of the Little Tennessee River. This would take her directly through Charley Gap, where she had lived with her father. Besides, she would feel safer out of the woods, so she could see any possible danger.

Tired, and still hungry, Mandie traipsed along the river for miles and miles. Then, although the log cabin her father had built was not exactly on her route to Bird-town, Mandie veered away from the river and headed toward the farm.

Determinedly, she forced her weary feet to carry her on. Once in a while she put the harness back on Snowball to let him walk, but each
time, he wiggled and thrashed around so badly that she gave up trying to keep him on a leash.

At daybreak, she stood on top of a mountain and stopped to watch the sun come up far, far away. This was her favorite time of day, the time when everything was rested—except her now—and a whole new day lay before her.

In the yellow-orange colors of the dawn, Mandie thrilled at the beauty of nature. The birds chattered to each other, and in the distance Mandie could hear a cow mooing. The dew covered the leaves and the underbrush, and her dress became damp as she pushed her way through the thickets.

As she trudged on, the sun rose high in the sky and the air became warmer. Finally, as she reached the top of a familiar mountain, she peered down to see the small log cabin that was her former home.

Mandie's heart beat faster. She started down the mountain, cuddling her kitten close. “Now you be quiet, Snowball,” she cautioned softly. “We don't want anyone to see us. We're only going to walk by and look.”

Snowball meowed in response.

As Mandie crept nearer the log cabin, floods of memories blurred her eyes with tears. She wiped them away quickly and looked around. A flock of chickens chased around the yard, and cows mooed in the pasture, but there was no one in sight.

Stopping behind the huge chestnut tree that stood at the edge of the yard, Mandie whispered to Snowball. “This used to be our home,” she said. “You probably can't remember it because you were just a tiny kitten when we left.”

Her voice broke and she looked toward the sky.
Oh, dear God
, she cried in her heart,
if only we could live here again! If only I could see my daddy again and talk to him one more time
!

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I thank you for all the fine clothes, the beautiful home back in Franklin, and all that good food. But I would trade it all for this one simple log cabin, dear Lord, if I could just be with my daddy again.”

A noise nearby interrupted Mandie's prayer. Quickly regaining her composure, she slipped back among the trees.
It might just be an animal
, she thought, but she couldn't take any chances. She waited silently for a few minutes but didn't hear anything else.