“Sometimes it is more enlightening to sit and listen rather than to talk,” Dimar replied with a smile.
“You are right about that,” Joe agreed, sipping his coffee.
“That depends on who is talking,” Jonathan said with a big grin as he glanced at Mandie, then quickly changed the subject. “Has your grandmother decided whether she is going to Europe this coming summer?”
“She has probably already decided but is taking her own good time to tell me,” Mandie answered.
“I’d like to go back to Europe with all of you as a passenger and not a stowaway this time,” Jonathan said with a big grin.
“It’s nice to have a grandmother who owns a ship line,” Celia said.
“Yes, but she always wants to arrange everything her way,” Mandie said, and blowing out her breath, she added, “Seems like she would give in for one time at least, for our graduation present, and let us have some say-so in the plans.” She glanced across the room. The adults were deep in conversation, but Mandie couldn’t hear what they were talking about.
John Shaw stood up and came across the room to speak to Mandie. “We need to get the tree before the snow gets too thick,” he told her.
“Snow?” the whole group said together as everyone turned to look out the window. Snow was falling fast and thick outside. Huge snowflakes swirled in the wind.
“Riley O’Neal and Mr. Jacob Smith aren’t here yet, are they?” Mandie asked.
“No sign of them yet. They might have encountered a lot of snow in the mountains, which would slow them up,” John Shaw replied. “I’d say if they aren’t here in the next hour we’d better go ahead and get the tree.”
“Yes, sir,” Mandie agreed. “I was hoping everyone would be here to go out together to find a tree,” Mandie said. She glanced out the window. “Maybe they’ll make it in time.”
But when the hour passed, they still had not arrived. John Shaw motioned across the room for Mandie and her friends to come with him and Jonathan’s father, Lindall Guyer, and Uncle Ned.
As she caught up with him, she asked, “Is Mother not coming? Or Grandmother and the others?”
“No, they will get things ready to put the tree up while we find one,” John Shaw explained.
Wrapped up in warm coats, gloves, scarves, and hats, the young people stepped out into the white wonderland. Everything was already covered with snow. Their shoes pressed deep footprints into the white covering.
John Shaw led the way and they walked all the way to the woods at the back line of his property.
“Amanda, you and your friends pick a tree and we’ll cut it,” John Shaw told her.
“Yes, sir,” Mandie replied. She looked at her friends and said, “Now remember we will only cut one tree so we have to agree on one together.”
“How about some of that mistletoe up there?” Joe asked, gazing above them at the bunches growing on the trees.
“Yes, mistletoe,” Jonathan said laughing.
“If you would like mistletoe, I will climb the tree and get it for you,” Dimar offered.
“All right,” Joe agreed, and looking at Jonathan, he added, “I’d trust you ahead of Jonathan anytime climbing a tree.”
Dimar smiled and went to get a hatchet from the men’s tools.
“You don’t think I can climb a tree?” Jonathan asked with a big grin. “Just because I live in New York is no reason to think I’m that dumb.”
“All right, maybe you can climb a tree, but please don’t try it today. We don’t need any accidents today.”
Mandie, afraid that Jonathan might just try climbing the tree, quickly said, “Oh, Jonathan, we need you down here on the ground to catch the mistletoe when Dimar cuts it and throws it down.”
“Sure,” Jonathan agreed and went to stand under the tree that Dimar was already climbing.
“You catch it and I will put it in the croker sacks to carry it,” Sallie told him.
“Then Celia and I will help the men find a tree to cut,” Mandie said. She and Celia went ahead to catch up with the men.
“I’m always afraid Joe and Jonathan are going to have a real argument some day,” Mandie said as they walked along.
“I don’t think so. I believe they both know the other one is kidding all the time,” Celia replied. “Do you think Riley O’Neal and Mr. Smith will get here in all this snow?”
“Oh yes. Remember Mr. Smith was born and raised in the country and is used to it. And I think Riley O’Neal has been in the South long enough to know how to get around in all kinds of terrain, not like where he came from back in Boston.”
“I’m wondering if Sallie likes Riley O’Neal,” Celia said.
“If Sallie likes Riley O’Neal? Of course she does. She is helping him teach the Cherokee children,” Mandie replied.
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Celia said.
“Oh, oh, oh!” Mandie said with a laugh. “I understand what you mean, but no, I believe Sallie likes Dimar.” She turned to look at Celia as they tramped along in the snow. “Don’t you think they would make a nice couple?”
“Well, I suppose, but Sallie wants to travel around other places and all that and Dimar wants to stay right where he was born and raised.”
“Uncle Ned and Morning Star certainly will miss Sallie if she ever leaves home,” Mandie remarked. “With both her parents dead, Sallie is all they’ve got. I wish Uncle Ned was my grandpa.”
They had caught up with the men by then and Uncle John asked, “Which tree? We’ve located four about the right size.” He pointed to four different trees nearby. “Your mother told me to remind y’all that the limbs shouldn’t be too long or they will take up too much room in the hallway.”
“Celia, help me decide,” Mandie said as she walked around the area.
“They look pretty much alike, don’t they?” Celia asked as she looked at the cedar trees John Shaw had picked. “Maybe we should compare the branches and see which one has the shortest, like your mother wanted.”
“All right,” Mandie agreed and began examining the branches of the nearest one. “This one won’t do. You see this branch is awfully long—in fact, longer than all the branches on this tree, and if you trim it the shape of the tree might not look right.”
“How about this one?” Celia said as she examined the next tree.
“Yes, that’s a better one, but let’s look at the other two,” Mandie said.
As they were examining the other two trees, Mandie heard horses’ hooves in the distance and someone yelling. She quickly looked at her uncle. He had heard it, too.
John Shaw stood listening for a few seconds, then called to Lindall Guyer and Uncle Ned, who were looking at trees ahead of them, “Sounds like trouble.”
“I go see,” Uncle Ned called back and quickly turned to go back the way they had come.
“Let’s cut the tree quickly now and get back,” Uncle John told Mandie.
“Yes, sir, this one,” she indicated the one she and Celia had decided on.
As John Shaw began chopping at the trunk of the tree, Joe and Jonathan came to join them.
“I can cut that, Mr. Shaw, if you’d like to go with Uncle Ned to see what the trouble is,” Joe offered.
John Shaw quickly handed him the axe and said, “Thank you, Joe.” Looking at Lindall Guyer, he said, “If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate your staying here to see they get it down and back to the house all right.”
“Of course, John, I’ll be glad to,” Lindall Guyer replied. “Now, boys, let’s make a quick job of this.”
John Shaw quickly disappeared through the trees to join Uncle Ned and to investigate the yelling they had heard.
“Yes, please hurry, Joe, so we can get back to the house and find out what is going on,” Mandie urged.
“I’ll have it down in no time,” Joe promised.
The tree began to topple and everyone stayed out of the way until it was far enough down, lying on other branches, that they pulled it free. And the
n the boys shouldered it and they began their way back to the house.
By the time they got to the back door, Mandie saw that the riders were Mr. Jacob Smith and Riley O’Neal.
“What’s happening?” she anxiously asked as John Shaw and Uncle Ned stood talking to the two men.
“House on fire,” Riley O’Neal told her.
“Where?” all the young people asked at once.
The boys dragged the tree up onto the huge porch out of the falling snow and came back to listen.
“Over the mountain,” Jacob Smith told the group.
“Just let me tell Elizabeth where I’m going and I’ll be ready to go,” John Shaw told the men.
“And I go, too,” Uncle Ned added.
Everyone went in the back door and on down the hallway to the parlor. Elizabeth immediately stood up as she saw the new visitors. “Welcome,” she said.
John Shaw quickly told her and the others in the parlor, Dr. and Mrs. Woodard, Senator Morton, Mrs. Taft, Morning Star, and Jane Hamilton the news.
Dr. Woodard insisted on going with them. “After all, I am a doctor and might be needed,” he said.
“Senator Morton, would you please stay here with the ladies? I have no idea how long we’ll be gone,” John Shaw said, and turning to look at the boys, he said, “No, you cannot go. You fellows need to stay here with the ladies . . .”
The men, John Shaw, Uncle Ned, Dr. Woodard, Lindall Guyer, Riley O’Neal, and Jacob Smith quickly left.
Mandie and her friends began removing their coats and hanging them on the hall tree. They went back into the parlor to sit down.
“Someone’s house is burning up, right here at Christmas,” Mandie said with a frown. “I just hope no one is hurt in the fire.”
“Yes, they were in and out in such a hurry we didn’t really find out much,” Celia added.
“I would imagine there was no one in the house or Riley and Mr. Smith would have stopped long enough to try to rescue them,” Joe said.
“We at least got the tree,” Jonathan said. “And the mistletoe.”
Liza came to the doorway to announce, “Miz Lizbeth, Aunt Lou, she say de food be on de table.”
“Thank you, Liza,” Elizabeth Shaw said, rising. “We should go on in and eat. It may be hours before the men are back.”
Everyone agreed and they all went to the dining room where the table was loaded with food. But Mandie noticed that no one seemed to have an appetite at the moment.
Senator Morton returned thanks and said a prayer for whomever the house belonged to. The others joined him.
Mandie and her friends didn’t even discuss the Christmas tree. They talked about the terrible disaster that had befallen someone on this snowy night.
CHAPTER THREE
WAITING
Supper was slow as everyone waited for the men to return from the fire. Mandie and her friends kept watching the door.
Finally Liza stuck her head in the doorway and told Elizabeth Shaw, “Dem thangs whut you hang on de Christmas tree all down from de attic, sittin’ in de hallway.”
“Thank you, Liza,” Elizabeth Shaw replied as the girl left. Then looking down the table at Mandie, Elizabeth said, “I believe we should go ahead and decorate the tree when everyone is finished with supper here. Abraham can bring it in and set it up in the hallway for us.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mandie said, trying to get excited about the tree again. She looked down the table and saw Mollie, who was sitting beside Aunt Rebecca, about half asleep. “Should we include Mollie in our decorating or let her go on to bed?”
Elizabeth glanced at Mollie and said, “Rebecca, I believe Mollie needs to go to bed, don’t you think? That long journey has worn her out. I don’t believe she has even eaten much supper.”
“You’re right,” Aunt Rebecca replied. “I’ll take her upstairs and tuck her in for the night.”
Everyone rose and left the room. Rebecca managed to get Mollie up the stairs with help from Joe and Jonathan. Mandie, Celia, and Sallie opened the boxes of decorations in the hall. Elizabeth went to the kitchen to ask for Abraham’s help in getting the tree inside.
And after much huffing and puffing, Abraham managed, with the help of the boys, to get the tree standing in the hall, ready for decorating. The adults watched and supervised now and then as the young people decorated the huge tree.
“Some of these decorations are older than I am,” Mandie told her friends as she picked up a wooden cross with a red ribbon threaded through it and found a branch to hang it on.
“Y’all have so many decorations,” Celia remarked as she looked at the boxes sitting around the hallway.
“Yes, and of course we never use them all. We just pick and choose every year,” Mandie replied.
Joe and Jonathan volunteered to climb up on a ladder and attach the silver angel to the top of the tree. Dimar held the ladder since it was a little shaky.
“This ladder needs tightening up or something,” Jonathan remarked as he stood on a rung halfway up.
“That’s because it’s old and so many heavy people have used it,” Mandie said, standing back to survey the ornament at the top.
“Did y’all put up a tree in your house in New York?” Mandie asked Jonathan.
“Yes, we did,” Jonathan said, coming down the ladder. “My father has so many business friends coming and going all the time, he decided to decorate even though we won’t be there for Christmas Day.”
Joe followed him down. “We did, too, because all our people who work for us will be there during Christmas,” he said.
“Well, we didn’t even put a tree up, just a huge wreath on the front door,” Celia said. “All the help have been given the holidays off, so there is no one there.”
“Grandmother put up a tree last week, but I didn’t help decorate because I had to stay at the school until we left for home here,” Mandie said.
“Dimar got us a tree and helped put it up, then everyone went up to his house to help put up one for his mother,” Sallie said.
“And Sallie and I put one up for the Cherokee school,” Dimar said, picking up one of the wooden ornaments and examining it.
“So everybody has a tree except my mother and me,” Celia remarked, handing a silvery ornament to Joe to hang near the top of the tree.
Mandie glanced through the open doorway to the parlor. The adults had finally gone in there to sit down. “I wish Uncle John and the others would hurry up and come on back,” she said.
At that moment Snowball came racing down the hall and headed straight for the ornaments hanging on the lower limbs of the tree. Mandie quickly grabbed him. “Don’t you dare touch anything on that tree, Snowball,” Mandie told the white cat.
Liza hurried toward her. “Sorry, dat cat he got out of de kitchen,” she said. “Give me him and I take him back.” She reached for him.
“Thank you, Liza,” Mandie said, handing over the white cat. “Please keep him out of here until we at least finish decorating. I don’t think he’ll bother the tree after we finish and no one is hanging ornaments. He always thinks we are playing with him when we decorate.”
“I sho will keep him in de kitchen,” Liza said, turning back toward the kitchen. She stopped and looked back as she said, “De men done come up in de yard out dere. Dey all back.”
“They’ll come through the hallway here,” Mandie told her friends. “Then we can catch them and find out what happened at the fire.” She stepped over to the doorway of the parlor, looked across the room at her mother, and said, “Liza said the men are back, Mother.”
“Ask your uncle John to stop in here as he comes through,” Elizabeth told her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mandie replied, and went back to her friends.
The young people kept watching the hall door and finally John Shaw, Uncle Ned, Lindall Guyer, Jacob Smith, Riley O’Neal, and Dr. Woodard came through it. They were all dirty and rumpled.
“Uncle John, did y’all save the house?” Mandie quickly
asked.
“No, it was too far gone, but we did manage to save the occupants,” John Shaw replied as he and the men walked on toward the parlor.
“Who was in it, Mr. Shaw?” Jonathan asked.
John Shaw turned back with a big smile and said, “We brought the occupants home with us. Abraham took them to his house in the backyard.” He walked on.
The young people followed.
“They are at Abraham’s house?” Mandie repeated, slightly puzzled with this. Why didn’t he bring them to the Shaws’ house?
John Shaw stopped at the parlor door, looked inside, and said, “We just wanted y’all to know we got back all right and we need to clean up and will be right back down.”
“All right, I’ll ask Aunt Lou to get y’all some supper ready,” Elizabeth said, rising.
“She saw us come in,” John Shaw said, turning into the hallway. He and the other men quickly went down the hall and up the main staircase to their rooms.
The young people looked at each other and said, “Well!”
“Shall we go out to Abraham’s house and see who it was that they brought back with them?” Jonathan asked with a big grin.
Mandie thought about that for a second and replied, “No, I don’t believe we had better do that. We might get in trouble. We’ll just have to wait for them to come back downstairs so we can ask some more questions.”
They quickly finished decorating the tree, picked up the odds and ends left over, and placed them in the boxes. Abraham would take them back to the attic when he had time.
The young people hung around the parlor doorway, waiting for the men to return.
Mandie heard her mother say, “Now, I wonder just who was living in the house.”
“If Abraham took them to his house, they must have been some servants of some kind,” Mrs. Taft said. “Otherwise John would have brought them here.”
“This is a puzzling situation,” Jane Hamilton said.
“I’m sure he has a good explanation for his actions,” Senator Morton told the ladies.
“At least they didn’t say anything about anyone being injured in the fire,” Mrs. Woodard said.
The Mandie Collection Page 15