The Mandie Collection (9 page)

Hilda sat there, staring at Mandie, and Mandie didn't know if she understood anything she was saying or not.

Mandie handed her a bright red wool scarf from the trunk. “Here, wrap this one for me,” she said. “In red paper. That's for Liza. Here. I'll cut the paper for you.”

Hilda snatched the scarf, wound it around her shoulders, and paraded around the room, humming to herself.

Mandie jumped up and tried to take the scarf away from her. But Hilda backed off, holding tightly to the red scarf.

Mandie held out her hand. “Hilda, that's for Liza, not you,” she explained. “Please give it to me. Please?”

Hilda wouldn't budge.

Quickly looking through the presents she was wrapping, Mandie picked out a red silk sachet and held it out to Hilda. “Give me the scarf, and I'll give you this,” Mandie offered. She held the sachet up to her nose and sniffed. “Smell of this, Hilda. It smells so good.”

Hilda leaned forward to look and took a deep breath. She reached for the sachet.

Mandie pulled it back. “You have to give me the scarf.”

Hilda slowly removed the scarf and gave it to Mandie as she snatched the sachet with her other hand. Then she sat down on the rug near the presents and hummed to herself as she repeatedly smelled the sachet.

Mandie quickly wrapped Liza's scarf in order to get it out of sight. Then she wrapped other presents until she had a big armful to take downstairs.

She gathered them all up. “Hilda, I have to go put these under the Christmas tree,” she said. “You can go with me, but we can't make any noise. Do you understand? Quiet. Secret.”

“Secret,” Hilda repeated, rising to follow Mandie from the room.

Mandie crept down the stairs with Hilda following. The fire in the parlor fireplace had been banked for the night, so it gave a dim light. When they got to the tree, Hilda reached to help as Mandie distributed the presents around the floor under the limbs.

“Red, green, red, green,” Mandie whispered, indicating that they should alternate the colors of the packages around the tree.

“Red, green,” Hilda replied in a barely audible whisper.

Then they stood back to survey their work.

“It looks pretty, doesn't it?” Mandie asked softly.

Hilda nodded and smiled. “Pretty,” she whispered back.

“Time to go back to bed,” Mandie said, leading the way upstairs.

Back in Mandie's room, Hilda agreed to get into bed but insisted on keeping the sachet with her.

“Hilda, we don't want to smell that thing all night,” Mandie said. “Here. I know. Put it under your pillow. It'll be safe there.”

Finally Hilda understood. She quickly shoved the sachet under her pillow and held the pillow tight.

Mandie blew out the light and both girls soon fell asleep. It had been a long, tiring day. And Mandie was wishing the time away until her mother would come home. She wanted to know what the big surprise was.

The snow continued through the night, and when morning came, Mandie pulled back the curtain in dismay. Evidently, Liza had come in and built the fire without waking them.

“Oh, Hilda, it's still snowing,” Mandie groaned. “It looks like it's six feet deep in places out there. Mother and Uncle John will never get home today!”

Hilda came and stood beside her. “Pretty,” she said, pointing to the snow that floated down outside the window.

“Yes, it's beautiful,” Mandie agreed, turning back toward the bed. “Let's get dressed and go downstairs. We're probably the last ones up. I didn't even hear anyone come in to build the fire for us.”

When they got downstairs, everyone else was sitting at the table in the breakfast room. Mandie greeted them all while Mrs. Taft took Hilda over to the sideboard to get her some breakfast.

Then Mandie filled her plate and sat at the table next to Joe. “I thought sure the snow would be stopped by this morning,” she said.

Mr. Bond glanced up. “Looks like it's going to continue for a while anyway.”

Mrs. Taft told Mrs. Burns, “Y'all are just going to have to stay until things clear up.”

“We sure do appreciate your hospitality,” Mrs. Burns replied, taking a sip of coffee.

Jake Burns looked up from his bacon and eggs. “Yessum,” he added. “We'll be leavin' soon's the weather permits.”

Mandie nudged Joe. “You're awfully quiet this morning for some reason,” she teased.

Joe reached for a hot biscuit from the platter Liza had just placed on the table. “At the rate this snow is falling, I've been waiting to see when you'd realize that our parents won't be able to get back today either,” he answered.

“That was the first thing I thought of when I looked out the window this morning,” Mandie said sadly. She turned to talk to the caretaker. “Mr. Jason, do you think my mother and Uncle John and Joe's parents might get through the snow?”

“I'm afraid not, Missy,” he replied, cutting into the piece of ham on his plate. “There'd be too big a chance of getting stuck somewhere in the snow. And I don't think your Uncle John would allow your mother to travel in such weather.”

“Amanda, they may not even be ready to come back yet,” Grandmother Taft reminded her. “They may still be needed. Mr. Wright could be better, but he might be worse. And I'm sure they'll stay to help in any way they can.”

“I give up on the surprise,” Mandie moaned. She turned back to her grits and eggs. “I'm not going to try to persuade anybody to tell me what the big secret is anymore.”

Hilda stopped eating and looked up. “Secret,” she said, smiling. “Red, green, red, green. Secret.”

Mandie tried to hush her. “Hilda, that's our secret, remember?”

“Oh, so now you have a secret, too,” Joe teased.

Mandie pursed her lips and tossed her blonde hair. She didn't say a word.

“Anyway, we know it's red and green, according to Hilda,” Joe laughed.

Mandie noticed Mr. Burns drumming his fingers on the table. Then he poured himself another cup of coffee. “I reckon Hank will figure out what delayed us,” he said to Mr. Bond.

“Sure,” Jason Bond replied. “If he knows you went to cut a tree from Mr. Shaw's land, he'll probably know you came by here and stayed because of the snow.”

“Who's Hank?” Mandie asked.

“Hank's my wife here's cousin,” Jake Burns explained. “He's been ahelpin' us git the farm ready.”

Mrs. Taft smiled at him. “I'm glad you've found someone to help you get started,” she said.

“Yeah, without him bein' there, we would've had to try to git back last night, 'cause there's livestock to feed and Spot and Ring to take care of.”

“Spot and Ring?” Mandie asked.

“They're two beautiful pups Dr. Woodard gave us,” Jake said.

“Oh, I'll have to see them,” Mandie said. “How old are they?”

Jake turned to Joe. “What are they? Two, three months, maybe?”

“I think they were born about October first,” he said. “Mandie, remember my dog, Samantha? They're two of her last puppies.”

“Oh, yes,” Mandie said. “Samantha had new puppies when we stopped to visit you on our way to see my Cherokee kinspeople.”

Mandie remembered that was after her father had died at Charley Gap and she had been reunited with her real mother, Elizabeth. And then Elizabeth had married Mandie's Uncle John.

“Well,” Grandmother Taft said, rising from the table, “with all this snow now, I think today would be a good day for us all to get ready for Christmas. I know I have presents to wrap. And Amanda, you and Joe could get the holly, and mistletoe, and other greenery off the back
porch and decorate the house. Then we'll have everything ready and

waiting when your mother and the others do get home.”

“All right. I'll be finished eating in a minute,” she told Joe.

As the adults left the table, Hilda followed them out of the room.

“I'm going upstairs for a moment, Mandie,” Joe said. “I'll meet you in the parlor.”

Mandie rushed through her breakfast and then hurried out to the parlor. As she looked at the tall Christmas tree, her heart did flip-flops. Someone had taken all the red-wrapped presents from under the tree.

Who would do such a thing
? she wondered. It couldn't have been Hilda. She had slept with her last night, and if Hilda had got out of bed, Mandie would have known it. So who did it, and where were all her presents for the women and girls?

Just then Joe came in and found her staring at the tree. “Ready?” he asked.

“Oh, Joe, somebody has taken all the presents I wrapped in red paper last night,” she said furiously. “Look! There are only green ones left.” She pointed to the bottom of the tree.

“Hilda?” Joe said immediately.

“No, Hilda slept with me, and I think I would have known if she got out of bed,” Mandie replied. “In fact, we stayed up real late wrapping the presents. She helped me, and when we went to bed, we were so sleepy I don't think she would have wanted to get up again.”

Joe thought for a moment. “Well, I can't imagine who else could have taken them.”

“How will I ever find them?” Mandie sighed. “Now I will have to get more presents to give to Aunt Lou, Liza, Jenny, and Hilda.”

“I'm sorry, Mandie,” Joe tried to comfort her.

“I'm just glad I hadn't finished all my wrapping,” Mandie said. “I still have some of the other presents upstairs unwrapped, like the ones for Mother, and Celia, and Morning Star, and Sallie.”

“Are you expecting Uncle Ned, and Morning Star, and Sallie to come for Christmas?” Joe asked.

“Uncle Ned promised they would come some time during the holidays,” Mandie explained. “He didn't know exactly when, but they'll be here.”

Just then Snowball came wandering into the parlor to find his mistress, and Mandie picked him up.

“For once we can't blame this on Snowball,” Joe laughed. “And you said Hilda couldn't have done it, so we'll have to do a little looking around to see if we can find the presents. I wonder why only the red ones were taken.”

“I don't know,” Mandie said, “but all the red ones are for the women and girls. The green ones are for the men and boys.”

“In other words, the one for me is still under there?” Joe teased, stooping to look over the remaining presents.

Mandie pulled him back. “Don't you dare bother my presents!”

Joe straightened up. “Well, I'm glad I haven't put my presents under the tree yet,” he said. “They might have disappeared, too.”

“I think we should go talk to my grandmother,” Mandie suggested.

“Let's go,” Joe agreed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

RED, GREEN, RED, GREEN

When Mandie and Joe found Mrs. Taft, she was in her room wrapping her Christmas presents. She quickly laid an extra quilt over the bed where she was working, trying to hide what she had laid out there.

She was shocked when Mandie and Joe told her about the missing presents. “But, dear, it must have been Hilda,” she told Mandie. “You know how she is always getting involved in unsuspected doings.”

“No, Grandmother, this time I just can't believe it was Hilda,” Mandie disagreed. “I know I would have heard her if she got out of bed.”

“Well, it's hard to believe that anyone else in the house would do such a thing,” Mrs. Taft replied. “I suppose the best thing to do is to start looking for the presents.”

“And what am I going to do if we don't find them?” Mandie whined. “I'll have to get to a store somehow to replace the ones that were taken.”

“I think you'll find them somewhere in the house, dear,” said Grandmother Taft. “No one has come in or left since you put them there.”

Joe ran his fingers through his brown hair. “I don't think we ought to ask anyone else to help us, though,” he said. “The fewer people who know about this the better since we don't know who is guilty.”

“You're right, Joe,” Mandie agreed. “Let's start looking.”

“Start with Hilda's room, just in case,” Mrs. Taft suggested. “As soon as I wrap these presents I'll see if I can help you.”

“I wouldn't put those presents under the tree if I were you,” Joe said.

“Oh, I think they would be all right,” Mrs. Taft replied. “But I won't put them under the tree for the next day or two until I get them all wrapped anyway.”

Mandie and Joe turned to leave the room. “We'll let you know if we find them, Grandmother,” Mandie said.

As they began their search, Mandie knew it would be a big task to look in all the rooms, in all the drawers and wardrobes and anything that could hold such stuff. But they followed Grandmother Taft's advice and started with Hilda's room first.

Hilda followed them up the stairs and into her room.

“Hilda, have you seen all the presents we wrapped in red paper?” Mandie asked as she looked all over in the room. “Remember, we put them under the tree last night?”

Hilda smiled at her. “Red, green, red, green,” she said.

“It's no use,” Joe said with a shrug. “She doesn't understand what you're talking about, and I can't find anything.”

“Hilda, you stay here,” Mandie said. “Take a nap. Sleep. We'll be back soon.”

Hilda only stood there smiling. And when they left the room, she followed, sticking right with them as they searched. Snowball showed up now and then, too. When they started up the stairs to the attic, the white kitten ran ahead and sat there waiting for them to open the door and let him in.

“Snowball, what are you up to?” Mandie asked.

Joe reached forward and opened the door. “He probably smells a mouse,” he said as the kitten rushed past him into the dark attic.

With the snow still falling outside and no sunshine, the attic windows didn't let in much light.