The Mandie Collection (25 page)

Mandie smiled at Liza, who was still frozen in shock as she stood by the table, and said, “Liza, I told you I would get you a beautiful dress.”

With the things that needed to be done it was a wonder that the Shaw family ever got to New York on time, but they did, dragging openmouthed Liza with them.

And when the Guyers met them at the train and took them to their huge mansion, Liza was absolutely in shock. She was afraid to touch anything or even speak to anybody. Mandie hoped this would wear off.

It was Sallie who was able to comfort the frightened girl. They were sitting in the small parlor with Mandie the next morning. Liza had not spoken a word since they had arrived.

Sallie smiled at her and said, “Liza, please do not feel scared. You are different from these white people, but so am I and I am not scared of them. They are all my friends.”

Liza looked at her and didn’t speak.

“Remember the big God made us all and He decided what kind of people we would be, and we all belong to Him,” Sallie told Liza.

Liza looked at her with interest then. “But why did He not make us all alike? Why am I black and you are Indian?” she asked.

Mandie spoke up and said, “He made me pieces of different kinds of people. I am part white and part Cherokee. He made us all whatever He thought best. And you will see all kinds of people in all the foreign countries we are going to visit. They look different, talk different, and act different.”

Finally Liza seemed to understand. “Sho’ ’nuf?” she said. “I wanta see all dem different kinds of people.”

“You will,” Mandie promised with a big smile.

When everyone had assembled at the Guyers’ mansion a few days later, Mandie was amazed to see that Polly, April Snow, and the twins had come to travel with them to Europe. Mrs. Taft explained that it had been an open invitation and therefore they must make these other guests welcome. Mandie silently groaned with displeasure. But she was pleased to see that Mary Lou had come.

As they began getting luggage ready to be taken to the ship, everyone was excited and talking at once. The buzz was deafening in the parlor.

Mandie smiled across the room at her mother and then walked over to her. “Oh, Mother, this is so wonderful that I will get to spend all this time with you on the trip,” she said.

Elizabeth Shaw reached to embrace her and squeezed her tightly as she replied, “And so wonderful to me, too, dear. I love you with all my heart.”

“And I love you with all my heart, Mother. I’m so glad Uncle Ned knew how to find you, my real mother, when my father died,” Mandie said. “I thank God every day for you.”

Tears filled Elizabeth’s eyes and she could not speak but squeezed Mandie still harder.

Someone tapped on a dish or something to quiet the roar of talk. “Please, Mrs. Taft wants to speak,” Lindall Guyer said as he waved across the room at everyone.

Mrs. Taft, standing by his side, cleared her throat and said, “It is time to begin our way to the ship. Please stay together when we get there and are directed to our cabins.”

“Oh, shucks,” Mandie said to her circle of friends standing here. “I thought maybe she was going to announce that she would be marrying Mr. Guyer, since I don’t see Senator Morton along this time.”

All her friends howled at the idea.

“I don’t think she would do it that way,” Jonathan said. “Not with my father. They would probably elope.”

The laughter began.

Everyone finally made it to the dock, and when Mandie and her friends saw the great ship standing there they hugged each other in excitement.

Mandie glanced at her mother and then Uncle John and thought,
God has certainly blessed me.

Everyone moved up the gangplank.

Mandie

and Joe’s Christmas Surprise

FOR—

Who else but the other two-thirds of the

Larke Sisters.

Dedication

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Mandie and Joe’s Christmas Surprise
(A Drama in Three Acts)

ACT I—Scene 1

ACT I—Scene 2

ACT II

ACT II

ACT III

Mandie Shaw and Joe Woodard held on to the small hands of four children as they pushed open the basement door of the church across the road from Mandie’s house in Franklin, North Carolina.

“Let’s go inside now,” Mandie told the two little girls she was leading as she gave them a gentle push forward into the large classroom. Joe followed with two small boys.

“How many more do you think we can find?” Joe asked as the two boys pulled away from his grasp, threw off their hats and coats, and headed for a pile of toys in the corner.

Mandie let go of the two little girls after she removed their worn bonnets and coats. They hurried to join the boys who were already examining the playthings. “We need a few more,” Mandie replied. “I was hoping we could locate at least a dozen.”

“It’s going to be hard, if not impossible, to find eight more—especially with Christmas so close,” Joe said.

“But we’ve just got to do it,” thirteen-year-old Mandie said, looking at the tall, thin boy who was two years older. “I want this Christmas, in this year of 1901, to be remembered as a
real
Christmas with its true meaning, and this is the way we planned to do it.”

“We might could try something else,” Joe suggested as he flopped onto a nearby bench.

Mandie sat down beside him as she pushed back the hood of her cape. “But this was the only idea we could come up with,” she reminded him. She smoothed back loose tendrils of her long blond hair. She rose, took off her cape, and hung it on a peg in the corner. As she walked over to stand in front of the huge heater in the middle of the room, she said, “We need to build up this fire and get the children warm, don’t you think?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Joe said, jumping up to bring an armful of wood from an alcove nearby. He opened the door of the heater and poked at the burning wood to make room for more. Looking up at Mandie, he asked, “How are we going to do everything that is necessary, just the two of us? I think we need someone to help us. Maybe Liza?”

Mandie frowned as she watched him feed the fire. “I’m not sure we can trust Liza,” she said. “I know she wouldn’t deliberately give away our secret, but she might just forget and say something to somebody.” She thought about the young Negro maid who worked and lived at her uncle’s house. The two were friends and had participated in a lot of things together since Mandie’s mother, Elizabeth, had married Mandie’s Uncle John after Mandie’s father died. But Liza did talk a lot sometimes.

“Who else is there?” Joe asked as he closed the heater door and brushed his hands together.

Mandie walked around the large room a moment and then stopped. “Well, there’s my mother, and there’s Uncle John. But I don’t want them to know what we’re doing. What we really need is a wagon so we can go farther out into the country.”

“A wagon? The only wagon we’d have a chance of getting belongs to your Uncle John. When my father comes back to your house with my mother, I’m sure he’ll be driving the buggy,” Joe replied, running his long fingers through his unruly brown hair.

“I sure am glad y’all are spending the holidays with us,” Mandie said, looking up at the tall boy with a smile. “I couldn’t do all this by myself.”

“And I don’t think you and I together can do this,” Joe replied. “Mandie, we need someone else in on this. For instance, how are we going to take care of all these children down here in the church basement? They have to be fed and will need supervision. We can’t just go off and leave them in here all alone.”

“I know that, Joe,” Mandie said, walking about as she glanced at the children happily playing with rag dolls and balls. “One of us can stay here while the other one goes to find more. And I’m sure I can get plenty of food from our kitchen. And we’ve got that stack of shuck mattresses in the other room for them to sleep on, plus all those quilts I found in our attic. So I don’t see any problem with anything.”

Joe sighed as he strolled over to a small window in the far wall to look outside. Mandie followed him.

“Look! It’s beginning to snow,” Mandie said excitedly as she watched snowflakes fall on the shrubbery right outside the window.

“I think we’d better get some food in here for the night,” Joe said as he turned to look at the children.

“All right,” Mandie agreed. “It’s not quite time for Jenny to begin preparing supper at our house, so while there’s no one in our kitchen, I’ll make a quick trip over there and bring back whatever I can find.”

“Thank goodness you don’t have a pastor at this church right now or he’d be sure to catch up with us,” Joe remarked.

“The new one won’t arrive until February,” Mandie said as she put on her cloak and pulled up the hood. “I’ll be right back.”

“Please hurry back,” Joe said as she went out the door.

Mandie hurried around to the front of the church and out into the road. The snowflakes had disappeared. She crossed over to the white fence surrounding the yard of her Uncle John’s huge house. Opening the gate, she ran up the walkway and was on the way to the backyard when she heard the sound of horse’s hooves pausing on the road.

“Someone is coming,” she said to herself as she turned back and saw a buggy stop at the gate. Uncle John’s caretaker, Jason Bond, was driving the vehicle, and the passenger was her grandmother, Mrs. Taft. Evidently he had brought her from the depot. Mandie had thought her grandmother was not coming until the next day.

“I have an idea!” Mandie said aloud, lifting her long, heavy skirts as she turned and hurried toward the buggy.

“Grandmother, I’m so glad you’re here,” Mandie said as Mr. Bond assisted the lady down. Mandie reached to embrace Mrs. Taft.

“I was afraid if I waited any longer we might have a bad snow and I wouldn’t be able to get here for Christmas, dear,” Mrs. Taft said, returning the hug and straightening her skirts.

Mandie smiled and said, “I don’t believe snow would stop you, Grandmother, because the trains do run no matter what the weather is, and Asheville is not so far off anyway.”

Mrs. Taft started to walk on toward the front door of the house when Mandie put a hand on her arm to stop her. The old lady looked at her and asked, “What is it, dear?”

Mandie smiled and waited until Mr. Bond had passed them and was well up the walkway before she replied, “Grandmother, I need some help.” She paused, not knowing exactly how to explain.

“Help, dear? What kind of help?” Mrs. Taft asked as they stood there on the walkway.

“Well, all kinds of help,” Mandie said quickly. “But please understand, Grandmother, what I’m about to tell you is a secret, and you won’t give away my secret, will you?”

“Amanda, what on earth are you talking about? It’s cold out here and I need to get inside where there’s some heat. Now, what is it you want, dear?” Mrs. Taft asked, frowning as she looked at Mandie.

“I’m sorry. I’ll hurry up and explain,” Mandie said quickly. “You see, Joe Woodard and I have determined that we will make this Christmas a
real
Christmas, the way Jesus’ birth ought to be celebrated. And we’ve made these secret plans, but we need some help. We don’t want anyone to know what we’re doing, so it will be a big surprise.”

“Amanda, what are you and Joe up to? Please hurry and explain,” Mrs. Taft said, pulling her cloak closer around her.

“Joe and I asked if we could put on a Christmas play at the church. But nobody knows we are collecting orphans to participate in the play,” Mandie quickly explained. “And there are so many angles and odds and ends to this, and only two of us to get it all done. We need someone in on our secret, and I think you are the best secret-keeper I know of.”

“Oh dear!” Mrs. Taft said with a loud sigh. “And where are you and Joe getting these orphans?”

“We just brought two little girls from the Swafford farm and two boys from the Pinsons down on Bryson City Road,” Mandie explained. “And we are looking for more. We need about twelve to sing and act in the play. But now that we’ve begun all this, we can see that we need someone to help. Will you, Grandmother? Will you, please?” Mandie’s blue eyes looked up at her grandmother.

“Do you mean to say these people just let you take the children off like that?” Mrs. Taft asked.

“Well, they’re orphans, Grandmother, and it seems nobody cares about orphans—where they go, what they do. That’s why we decided to have no one but orphans in our play. We want everybody to change their attitude toward these little children without mothers and fathers,” Mandie explained as she thought about the sad lives of these little ones.

“Amanda, I know you’re always trying to do good, but sometimes you have some strange ideas about how to accomplish things,” Mrs. Taft said with another big sigh. “What is it you want me to do, dear?”

“Oh, thank you, Grandmother, for understanding,” Mandie said, smiling. “Here’s what we need. First of all, we need some money to buy wood for the heaters in the church basement, and food for the children, and some of them just have to have warmer clothes. And we need a wagon so we can go on out into the country and find more orphaned children—”

“All right, all right,” Mrs. Taft interrupted her. She shivered and started to walk on toward the house. “Let’s get inside before I freeze to death, and we’ll discuss this further in my room.”

Mandie wondered how she could get food from the kitchen for the children if she spent time with her grandmother. Jenny would soon be preparing the evening meal, and she didn’t want Jenny or anyone else to know what she was doing. She quickly decided she would have to go now to get the food.

“Grandmother, I will catch up with you in just a little bit. I had started to the backyard for something. I’ll be up to your room by the time you get comfortable.” Mandie talked fast, not giving her grandmother a chance to answer as she left the walkway and hurried toward the back of the house.

“All right, Amanda, but don’t be too long,” Mrs. Taft told her as she walked on toward the front door.

Mandie hurried quietly through the back door and on into the kitchen. There was no one around. She knew where Jenny kept the clean empty flour sacks and she quickly took one from the pantry shelf. Opening the pie safe, she found cornbread, biscuits, and various sweet cakes. On the top shelf was a large bowl of apples.

Grabbing some of each, she dropped them into the flour sack and then raided the icebox, where she found a jug of milk and added it to her bag.

“The warmer,” she said softly to herself as she remembered that Jenny sometimes left cooked food in the warmer on the big cast-iron cooking stove. She opened the door and found a pan of fried chicken, still warm and smelling so good. When she pulled out the pan she also found two large baked sweet potatoes.

Finally, with the flour sack full, Mandie quickly left by the back door and hurried across the road to the church. As she opened the door, she held out the bag to Joe, who was standing nearby. “Here’s the food. I’ve got to go back for a few minutes. Would you please feed the children? I’ll be right back.” Before he could protest, she quickly slipped back outside and ran to the house.

She hurried through the front door and down the long hallway to the staircase. Taking the steps two at a time, she rushed upstairs to the room that her grandmother always occupied when she visited them.

She was afraid Mrs. Taft might still be downstairs, so Mandie sighed with relief when her grandmother answered her knock on the door.

“Come in,” her grandmother called from inside the room.

Mandie entered and found her grandmother sitting in a comfortable chair with her feet up on a stool by the crackling fire in the fireplace.

“Come on in, dear,” Mrs. Taft said, waving her to another stool nearby.

Mandie quickly sat down as she said, “You didn’t stay downstairs to visit with my mother.”

“No, dear. You said you’d be right back, so I told Elizabeth I needed to rest awhile and would be down for supper,” Mrs. Taft said. “Now tell me more about this wild scheme you have concocted.”

“Grandmother, I don’t think it’s exactly a wild scheme,” Mandie replied, smiling up at the lady. “Joe and I are hoping the people here in Franklin will join with us in helping the orphans.”

“It might work and it might not. Who knows?” Mrs. Taft replied as she watched her granddaughter closely. “Now what is it you want me to do?”

“Like I said before, we need some money and we also need some help in taking care of the orphans until we can present the play,” Mandie explained.

“Tell me, how do you think this play will help the orphan situation?” Mrs. Taft asked.

“After the play is over, we are going to ask the audience to make a contribution toward the support of the orphans,” Mandie replied. Then she asked quickly, “Grandmother, did you know that people give these orphans a home in order to get free labor? These tiny children who don’t have a place to live are farmed out to anyone who is willing to give them a home in exchange for work. Imagine, these small children have to work for their living.”

“It is a sorry situation right now, Amanda. I agree on that,” Mrs. Taft replied. “But what can you do about it, you and Joe?”

“In the first place, Grandmother, I have experience in being an orphan,” Mandie said with a sad look on her face. “Remember how I was sent to the Brysons after my father died because I didn’t even know about my real mother? And Uncle Ned came to my rescue. If it hadn’t been for him, I suppose I’d still be there working without pay, tending their baby, and not even allowed to go to church. It was horrible, Grandmother.” She suddenly remembered that her grandmother had kept her and her mother apart, but Mandie had forgiven her grandmother long ago.

Mrs. Taft stared into the fire and said, “Since it was your father’s old Cherokee friend, Uncle Ned, who helped you, have you spoken to him about what you are doing?”

“I haven’t seen Uncle Ned since Joe and I decided to do this,” Mandie explained. “We’ve had to act so fast. Christmas is just around the corner, you know.”

“Amanda, I would make a couple of suggestions,” Mrs. Taft said. “Of course I’ll be glad to give you whatever money you need and—”