The Mandie Collection (47 page)

“I would, too,” Sallie said.

“So would I,” Dimar added. “I think it will be a good thing for our people.”

“I suppose I'll have to help, too,” Joe said, laughing. “I have no idea how, but there must be something all of us can do.”

“Let's go on back to the house, find Mr. O'Neal, and tell him we all want to help,” Mandie suggested, getting up and brushing off her skirt.

When they checked inside, Aunt Saphronia told them that some of the men were visiting out back. The young people found the missionary, Dr. Woodard, Uncle Ned, and Uncle Wirt sitting under the huge chestnut tree behind the cabin. As the young people approached, the men were discussing the hospital.

Mandie and her friends waited politely for a break in the conversation.

“Yes,” Riley O'Neal was saying, “I thought that I wanted to be a doctor before I decided to become a missionary. I had a little medical training, so if there's anything I can do . . .”

The men looked up at the young people.

Mandie took a deep breath. “Mr. O'Neal, we've come to offer our help on the school,” she told him. “All of us.”

The missionary smiled. “Thank you all. I can use all the help I can get. When I return from Boston, we'll have a meeting and assign duties, and so forth. God bless you.”

Dr. Woodard cleared his throat. “I believe we need to have a meeting right now concerning the hospital opening,” the doctor told them.

The young people sat down on the grass and listened.

Dr. Woodard took charge. “This will be a great surprise for you, Amanda, but a messenger brought word a little while ago that the President of the United States is sending his personal assistant, Mr. Adam Adamson, for the ceremony, and—”

Mandie jumped up and down. “President McKinley is sending Mr. Adamson?” she cried. “Oh, how wonderful! Y'all remember him, Sallie, Joe?”

The two nodded.

“Dimar, wait till you meet this man!” Mandie cried. “He is so nice!”

Dimar turned to Sallie. “I remember you told me about him, Sallie, after you got back from Washington,” he said. “It will be a great honor to meet the President's personal assistant.”

Dr. Woodard spoke again. “Mr. Adamson will arrive early in the morning,” he continued. “Uncle Ned has arranged for some young Cherokee men to meet him at the train. All of us will have to be ready to go to the hospital when he gets here.”

Mandie was so excited she didn't hear all the plans. She was remembering her recent journey to the White House to visit President
McKinley. That had been the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her.

The day passed, full of talk about plans for the forthcoming ceremony. Since Mandie was in charge of the gold that built the hospital, she would be one of the people on the platform with Dr. Woodard and Mr. Adamson. And since Joe and Sallie helped find the gold, they would be there, too.

The next morning they were all up by the time the roosters crowed, and Dimar appeared on the doorstep a few minutes later. He and his mother had spent the night with her sister, who lived nearby.

Mandie was so excited she could hardly eat a bite of breakfast. But even excitement couldn't ruin Joe's appetite. He heaped his plate three times with grits, sausage, eggs, pancakes, syrup, gravy, and hot biscuits, along with some fresh sliced tomatoes.

When Mandie saw all that he was eating, she gasped. “Joe Woodard, you're going to pop!” she exclaimed.

“I never gain an ounce, so I don't think I'll expand enough to pop,” Joe replied, shifting his long lanky frame.

Sallie smiled. “Just wait until you are grown. Then all this food will make you widen.”

At the sound of horses and wagons in the yard, everyone stopped eating to listen. They looked out the open doorway. Mandie spotted her friend, Adam Adamson, with the two Indian braves Uncle Ned had sent to bring him.

“Our company has arrived!” she exclaimed excitedly, excusing herself from the table.

Most of them were finished eating anyway, so they all crowded into the doorway to welcome the man from the President's house.

As the man alighted from the wagon, Uncle Ned, who had also met the man in Washington, stepped down the front steps to shake his hand. “Welcome, Mr. Adam,” he said.

“Thank you, Mr. Sweetwater. I am very honored to be here,” Mr. Adamson replied.

Mandie got a glimpse of him through the crowd and noticed that he was not wearing the formal clothes she had always seen on him. He wore what looked like a homemade shirt and cotton breeches held up by a pair of bright red suspenders.

Mandie guessed that he had dressed that way in order to be accepted by the Cherokees.
What a smart politician
, she thought.

Uncle Ned led the President's assistant to Uncle Wirt nearby. “Mr. Adam, this Mr. Pindar,” he said.

Uncle Wirt shook hands with Mr. Adamson. “Come. My house. Coffee,” he said.

The curious crowd stared as the three men passed through into the house. At the doorway inside, Mr. Adamson spotted Mandie, Sallie, and Joe. “Amanda,” he said, putting his arm around her. “The President sends all of you young people his best wishes for a successful hospital operation.”

Mandie, eager to introduce Dimar, spoke up. “Mr. Adamson, this is one of our very best friends, Dimar Walkingstick,” she said.

Dimar stepped forward and shook hands with the President's assistant. “I am very honored to meet you, sir,” he said.

“Any friend of these young people is a friend of mine,” Mr. Adamson said with a smile.

As they walked farther into the room, Mandie introduced Mr. Adamson to the missionary. “Mr. O'Neal has come all the way from Boston to set up a school for the Cherokee people,” she said proudly.

The men exchanged greetings.

As Uncle Ned steered Mr. Adamson toward the table, Aunt Saphronia brought a pot of hot coffee and set it on a plate on the table. She already had clean cups waiting.

When Mr. Adamson saw the tiny woman, he greeted her warmly. “Evidently you are the lady of the house, so you must be Mrs. Pindar,” he said. “It's such a pleasure to meet you.”

Aunt Saphronia understood more English than she could speak. A look of frustration crossed her face; then she said something rapidly in Cherokee and turned to Sallie to translate.

“She welcomes you to her house,” Sallie told Mr. Adamson. “She is honored to have an emissary of the President of the United States visit the Eastern Band of Cherokees and drink her coffee.”

Mr. Adamson took the old woman's hand and kissed it gallantly. “The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Pindar.”

Evidently Aunt Saphronia had never seen a woman's hand kissed before. Quickly withdrawing, she looked at her hand and then at Mr. Adamson. Then she smiled and said, “Sit.”

As the men sat down at the table for coffee, Mandie looked at her simple blue calico dress and at Sallie's skirt and waist and Joe's everyday clothes.
Mr. Adamson is seeing us as we really are now
, she thought.
In Washington we had to dress up in all that finery and act like rich people. Today we can be ourselves
.

By the time they had all finished their coffee, the group had grown so large it covered the entire yard outside. The Cherokees had all come to look at the man from the President's house. Even though Uncle Ned told them to go ahead to the hospital, no one left. So when everyone was ready to go, almost all the Cherokees who lived in that area were lined up down the road.

The hospital had been built between Bird-town, where Uncle Wirt lived, and Deep Creek, where Uncle Ned lived. The caravan had to go to the Tuckasegee River and follow the road along the river for a while before cutting away into the woods.

Mandie and her friends rode in Uncle Ned's wagon, and Dimar's mother drove theirs. Mandie held Snowball on her lap and eagerly watched the road for her first glimpse of the hospital. The last time she saw the structure, someone had been tearing down the walls. It seemed the hospital would never be completed. The culprits had been caught, however, and now the building was finished. Mandie couldn't wait to see it.

Mr. Adamson sat on the seat with Uncle Ned, and they all discussed their Washington visit. Dimar listened with great interest.

“The President says that you all must visit him again soon,” Mr. Adamson told them. “And perhaps you could come next time, Dimar.”

Dimar glowed with happiness. “Thank you, Mr. Adamson. I would be honored to visit with the President.”

Suddenly a flash of white through the trees caught Mandie's eye. “Here it is!” she cried excitedly. She bent forward, admiring the white frame structure with a small porch and two simple columns adorning the front. “Oh, Uncle Ned, it's beautiful!” she exclaimed.

The old Indian looked back at Mandie and then ahead to the hospital. “Yes. Good,” he agreed.

After he pulled his wagon into the shade under the trees, the young people scrambled to the ground.

Mandie led the way, clutching her kitten. “Let's explore the inside of the hospital,” she suggested. Then she saw the blue ribbon tied across the entrance.

“Oh, Mandie,” Joe said, “you know my father arranged all this. The ribbon has to be cut before the doors are opened.”

Mandie was disappointed. “I should have remembered,” she said. “I knew it was going to be a formal ceremony with all the trappings, but I thought if we slipped up here ahead of time, we could go inside to look.”

Sallie put her hand on Mandie's shoulder. “But that would spoil the surprise,” she said.

“The surprise?” Mandie asked.

“Yes, the Cherokee people are all going to be surprised at how efficient and beautiful it is inside,” Sallie replied. “You see, only a few of us worked on the furnishings. The others have no idea what is in there.”

“Well, I don't either,” Mandie said. “What is inside?”

Joe laughed. “Wait and see,” he told her.

Mandie stroked her kitten and stared at the hospital for a moment. There were rooms jutting out of either side of the porch to protect the front door from the weather. Several chairs sat on the porch, and in the center a huge basket full of brightly colored flowers rested on a small table.

As the time for the ceremony approached, hundreds and hundreds of Cherokees piled out of wagons parked in a jumbled confusion beyond the hospital, out of sight. Everyone hurried toward the hospital, looking for a good place to view the proceedings. Benches had been provided for the old people, but the others had to stand.

Dr. Woodard took charge and directed certain people to the chairs on the porch. “Amanda, in the center chair, please,” he called to her. “Joe, you sit on one side of her and Sallie on the other. Uncle Ned, Uncle Wirt, and Aunt Saphronia, sit here please.” He indicated the chairs on the other side of the porch. “Mr. Adamson, would you please sit by the table there?”

Those he called hurriedly took their places. The young people scanned the crowd, whispering to each other as they spotted various people they knew.

Dr. Woodard tapped on the table to hush the noisy crowd milling around the building. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began.

There was complete silence as the crowd waited to see what was going to happen next.

“We would like to ask Uncle Ned Sweetwater to open our ceremony with a prayer,” the doctor continued. “He has been instrumental in achieving this miracle we are looking at today. Without him this hospital would not have been. And we would ask that his granddaughter, Sallie Sweetwater, translate the prayer into English for us.”

Dr. Woodard paused for a moment and cleared his throat. “And since I don't know the Indian language, I have also asked her to translate the rest of the ceremony into Cherokee for her people.”

The doctor stepped aside and motioned for Uncle Ned to take his place in the center for the prayer. Sallie stood by his side as the old Indian lifted his black eyes toward the sky and began to pray in a loud voice. Since the Cherokee language is spoken in a very fast fashion, Sallie had to speed up her English translation to keep up with him.

There was a great response from the crowd. Some echoed Uncle Ned's words and others called out praises to God, but it all ended with a loud amen.

After Uncle Ned was seated, Dr. Woodard stepped back to the center of the porch. “And now, the President of the United States, William McKinley, has sent us a message, and his personal assistant, Mr. Adam Adamson, will deliver that message to us at this time. Mr. Adamson?”

As Sallie translated for Dr. Woodard, the man from the White House rose and began his speech. “President McKinley sends his love, first of all,” he said.

The crowd burst into applause at the familiar English word
love
, even before Sallie translated it.

Mr. Adamson waited for the noise to subside, then continued. “The President regrets that he cannot be here for this occasion, but he has sent his message by me.” He took a deep breath and smiled to the large crowd. “This is a great day for the Cherokee people. You now have your own hospital. And you also have one of the best doctors in this part of the country running it—the Cherokees' friend, Dr. Woodard.”

Again the crowd applauded enthusiastically.

Mandie stroked her kitten in her lap. She was glad everyone was so excited.
But
, she thought,
if they keep interrupting like this, we'll never get finished and get inside
.

Mr. Adamson didn't talk much longer, and when he finished, the Cherokees applauded and stomped their feet.

Then it was Mandie's turn to speak. Even though she knew most of the people and a lot of them were her distant relatives, her palms were sweaty. She handed Snowball to Joe, who took the kitten reluctantly.

Mandie's voice trembled a bit at first, and she fidgeted with her locket. “I love you, my Cherokee people,” she began, trying to brush away any thoughts of home, Europe, or the baby.