Read The Mandie Collection Online
Authors: Lois Gladys Leppard
The Mandie Collection
The Mandie Collection: Volume Nine
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002
Lois Gladys Leppard
MANDIE® and SNOWBALL® are registered trademarks of Lois Gladys Leppard
Cover design by Dan Pitts
Cover illustrations by Chris Wold Dyrud
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingâwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6020-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
For
Jeanne Mikkelson,
With many thanks to
a dear friend.
CONTENTS
Chapter 3 Did Miss Prudence Tell?
Chapter 8 Uncle Ned Investigates
“Of making many books
there is no end.”
âEcclesiastes 12:12
CHAPTER ONE
FORBIDDEN TERRITORY
Mrs. Taft's fancy rig came to a sudden, lurching halt. Mandie and Celia fell against each other as the vehicle swayed and then stopped. The horse added his protest to the crashing sound.
Ben, the driver, called out to the animal, “Whoa there now, whoa!” He jumped down and turned to look up at the girls. “Is y'all all right, missies?” he asked.
Mandie and Celia quickly scrambled down to the street with a helping hand from Ben. The three of them peered through the darkness to survey the damage.
“I'm all right, but what happened, Ben?” Mandie asked, shaking out her long skirts.
“Yes, what happened?” Celia echoed, taking a deep breath.
“Can't rightly tell heah in dis dark place,” Ben replied. “Best I ties up dis heah animal and walks y'all on to dat school so's I kin git Uncle Cal to come he'p.” He quickly tied the horse's reins to a pole nearby.
“I agree, Ben, because if we're late getting back to school, we'll be in trouble with Miss Prudence,” Mandie replied nervously. She removed her hat to rearrange her heavy blond hair, which had loosened from its hairpins in the mishap.
“Is it far to the school, Ben? I don't remember ever being on this street before,” Celia asked, looking around in the darkness.
“Dis heah ain't no street. It be a back alley, a shortcut from Miz Taft's house to yo' school. Ain't supposed to be on dis heah place,” Ben muttered, more to himself than to the girls. “But I be tryin' to git y'all back on time. Now let's be quick 'bout dis and git on to dat school.”
The girls had been to visit Mandie's grandmother, Mrs. Taft, who lived in Asheville not far from the Misses Heathwood's School for Girls, where Mandie and Celia were boarding students. They had stayed for supper, and since it was late Mrs. Taft had sent them back to school in her rig with Ben.
There was no moon. The sky was dark. The uneven cobblestones caused them to stumble now and then as the girls walked along with Ben.
Mandie tried to see where they were and what buildings they were passing. She asked, “Ben, do people live on this street?”
“No, missy, only bidness buildings along heah,” Ben answered shortly, hurrying them forward.
Suddenly Mandie stopped and put a hand on Celia's arm. “Celia, did you hear something?” She tried to see through the darkness in the direction of the sound.
“Yes,” Celia agreed. “Like a . . . soft whine.”
Ben turned to see what they were doing.
“Oh, it's a puppy!” Mandie exclaimed. “It could be in trouble!”
“No, missy, don't you even think 'bout findin' it,” Ben quickly said. “You young ladies shouldn't oughta even be in dis heah alley. It ain't fittin' fo' young ladies to walk in, and I sho' nuff know Miz Taft, she wouldn't be 'llowing it.”
“Celia, we'll come back in the daytime and look for it,” Mandie murmured as she and Celia continued on their way with Ben.
“No, missy, you don't do dat,” Ben said.
“If it's just businesses, why can't we come back? Besides, you drove us down it,” Mandie argued.
“And I shouldn'ta oughta done that,” Ben replied. “I ain't sure what goes on in dese warehouses. It's dirty and dark, and who knows what be hidin' behind dem walls.”
Mandie didn't understand why Ben didn't want them to come back to this alley. Why, she had seen lots of working people who got dirty on their jobs. She was sure there must be some other reason. How could she find out?
“Now, I'se gwine git y'all to dat school safe and sound,” Ben said to the girls as the end of the narrow alley came in sight. “We jes' don't hafta tell Miz Taft we came down dat alley, now, do we?”
Mandie looked at him quickly in the darkness and asked, “What about her rig? It's stranded back there in the alley. What if she asks where it broke down?”
Ben scratched his head under his cap and said, “Mebbe I gits de rig fixed real quick, an' Miz Taft, she don't need to know it ever broke down. Jes' let me worry 'bout dat.”
Mandie didn't reply but thought about it as they walked on. And lucky for Ben, Uncle Cal, the school caretaker, was coming down the front walkway of the huge mansion that housed the school.
“Y'all walk from Miz Taft's house?” Uncle Cal asked Ben as they approached.
“Not 'zackly,” Ben replied. “Rig quit rolling back down de road apiece. Wheel locked up. Mebbe you kin go back wid me and see if we kin git dat rig rolling agin.”
“Sho, I will,” Uncle Cal agreed.
The girls bid them good-night and hurried inside the schoolhouse. No one was in the front hallway, and they ran up the stairs to their room. Just as Mandie closed the door, the curfew bell in the backyard began ringing.
“Whew!” she exclaimed, leaning against the door. “We barely made it.”
“If we
had
been late for curfew, we probably would have been excused. It wasn't our fault,” Celia said, getting her nightclothes out of the big wardrobe.
“You never know about Miss Prudence,” Mandie replied, removing her straw hat and tossing it on the bureau. “Now, with Miss Hope, she's always understandingâthat is, when her sister, Miss Prudence, is not around. Anyhow, we got back on time, so we won't have to explain to Miss Prudence about the rig breaking down.” She pulled her own nightclothes from the wardrobe and began preparing for bed.
“Are we going to keep it a secretâabout Ben and the alley and everything?” Celia asked, glancing at Mandie in surprise.
“I don't want Ben to get in trouble,” Mandie replied, quickly putting on her nightgown. “Besides, it would create a lot of discussion and maybe more rules. My goodness, you and I are growing up. Fourteen is old enough to be given some freedom. We don't need more supervision and more rules.” She flopped into a chair as she talked.
“So, the way I understand it,” Celia answered slowly, “you are thinking if everybody knew Ben drove us through that so-called forbidden territory, he would be given strict orders about what routes to go, and we would never be able to make our own decisions about where we want to go. Is that right?” Celia finished as she hung up her dress and came to sit in the other chair in their room.
Mandie grinned at her friend. “That's about right,” she agreed. “And remember all the special favors Ben has done for us, like driving us by Mr. Vanderbilt's house so we could see it and going to feed the ducks in that pond out on that country road, and going to stores of our own choice to shopâyou know, lots of things like that. We never do anything wrong,” she said with another grin. “We just like to make our own choices.”
“You're right,” Celia agreed. “And your grandmother has been awfully generous with us. She lets Ben drive us in her rig when we need to go someplace, and she has done things for us, like the trip to St. Augustine last summer.”
“Yes, the trip to St. Augustine,” Mandie said enthusiastically. “Grandmother knew I didn't really want to go with her to visit Senator Morton, so I suppose that's why she got all our friends together and brought them down to Florida. Anyway, we did solve the mystery about our clothes being moved around in that wardrobe and that servant who couldn't hear or speak, didn't we?” She laughed at the memories.
“Right,” Celia agreed. “Have you decided what you are going to do next summer if Joe stays at college and doesn't come home?”
Mandie frowned and turned to swing her legs over the arm of the big chair. “I don't understand why Joe seems to think he has to study the whole year round instead of going for the usual terms like
normal students. He's in such a hurry to get through with school and get into law practice.” She paused a moment, then looked at Celia. “But if he doesn't come home for the summer, I'll survive.” Mandie smiled.
“Next year will be our last one here at Heathwood's. Mandie, we've got to make a decision about where we are going to college,” Celia reminded her.
“I know,” Mandie sighed. “I had thought I might like to go where Joe is down in New Orleans, but since I haven't had an opportunity to visit his college, I'm not sure right now.”
“That's a long way from home, Mandie,” Celia said. “I think we ought to go somewhere near my home in Virginia or yours in North Carolina.”
“Well, it might be nice to get away from Grandmother for a while,” Mandie replied. “And I'd like to go far enough away from home to have a chance to grow up and become a woman on my own. It's not that far from here to my home in Franklin, but at least my mother doesn't try to keep me under her thumb like Grandmother does. I can imagine what growing up was like for my mother with my grandmother supervising every move she made.”
“Then why don't we look at some colleges in Virginia? I wouldn't mind being closer to home,” Celia suggested. “Even if we went to a college in Richmond, I wouldn't have to stay at home just because I went to school in the same town where I live. My mother would understand. She wants me to learn to be on my own.”
“I just don't know, Celia,” Mandie said thoughtfully. “I know I'll have to make a decision soon, and I know that Mother will leave that up to me, no matter how much Grandmother tries to influence the decision.”