The Mandie Collection (74 page)

“Are you taking that terrible man out of my house, Sheriff?” Mrs. Taft asked.

The sheriff rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “No, I'm afraid I agree with Dr. Woodard that he shouldn't be moved right now,” he said. “Unless you insist that I remove him from the premises, I'll leave him here.”

“He can stay here provided someone guards him at all times,” Mrs. Taft decided. “I don't want him wandering all over my house.”

“He's not able to do any wandering around,” Dr. Woodard assured her.

“Well, I can't leave Ben in there to watch him all the time,” Mrs. Taft argued. “I need Ben for other things.”

“If you'll allow it, I'll send a deputy over to guard him,” the sheriff offered.

Mrs. Taft looked relieved. “That will be fine,” she said. “Just get him out of my house as soon as it is possible.”

At that moment, they heard loud noises outside the house. Everyone looked at one another.

Mandie ran to the window and peeked through the drawn draperies. “Grandmother!” she cried. “There must be a hundred people out in your front yard!”

Mrs. Taft and the sheriff quickly joined her at the window, followed by the others.

“What do they want, Sheriff?” Mrs. Taft asked nervously.

Everyone stared out the window at the sight of people everywhere. Some had lanterns, and they were all screaming something.

The sheriff took charge. “I'll go see what's going on,” he said. Heading for the hallway, he opened the front door, and the others followed, staying behind him.

As soon as the door opened, the people on the lawn surged forward. “We want him! We want him!” they cried.

The sheriff took his pistol from its holster and fired a shot into the air. The crowd hushed. His face was in full view in the lamplight from the hallway.

“This is the sheriff here,” he told them. “Now, what do you people want?”

“We want that man who desecrated the house of the Lord!” one man cried.

“We want the man who brought all that bad luck to this town with all that bell ringing and writing on the church wall!” a woman yelled.

“Send him out, Sheriff. We're gonna try him here and now!” another man shouted.

“He brung the flu down on this town and caused people to die!” a woman yelled.

The sheriff stepped forward. “Now, you wait just a minute!” he hollered. “I'm the law in this town, and we're going to do things by the law as long as I'm sheriff. Now go home—every one of you!”

“We ain't going home till we git that man!” a man insisted.

The angry mob grew louder and louder, pressing closer and closer toward the house. The sheriff raised his gun and fired into the air again.

His shot was answered by another shot from the crowd. “We got guns, too, Sheriff,” someone called out. “And we know how to shoot 'em!”

“I'm going to arrest all you troublemakers if you don't move on,” the sheriff threatened.

“There ain't a jail big enough to hold us all,” a woman yelled. “Give us that man and we'll leave!” cried a man in front.

“We know you've got him,” another bellowed. “Mr. Simpson said so.”

Mandie pursed her lips at hearing this. So Mr. Simpson was the cause of this, she thought angrily.

“I'm going back inside now,” the sheriff called back to the crowd. “We're having supper, and I don't want you moving any closer to this house. I'll discuss the matter with the lady of the house and let you know what she has to say.” He quickly closed the door.

Before anyone could say anything, the sheriff turned to Mrs. Taft and explained. “Of course I didn't mean what I told them,” he said. “I'm going for help. I left my horse in the backyard. I'll be back as fast as I can. Just don't open the door under any circumstances.”

Rushing through the hallway, he headed for the back door. Everyone else looked at each other nervously.

“Let's sit in the parlor,” Dr. Woodard suggested, leading the way. “The draperies are all drawn, so they can't see in.”

“What are we going to do?” Mrs. Taft asked as they took seats around the room.

“Nothing,” Dr. Woodard replied. “We'll just wait for the sheriff to come back.”

Everyone sat silently for a few seconds and then Dr. Woodard spoke again. “I need to check on Hilda and our prisoner,” he decided. “I won't be long.” He stood up and left.

Mrs. Taft also rose. “I think I'll talk to Phineas,” she said. “He must still be in the dining room.”

“He probably is,” Mandie agreed. “We told him to stay there.”

When Mrs. Taft left the parlor, Uncle Ned moved nearer to Mandie. All three young people sat in silence as the noise from the crowd grew stronger.

“They judge,” Uncle Ned commented. “Big Book say not judge.”

Mandie could feel her anger rising. “That's right, Uncle Ned,” she agreed. Suddenly she jumped up and ran to the hallway. “I'm going to tell them what I think of them.”

Before anyone could stop her, she opened the door, and the angry mob became very quiet as they saw the door open.

“Please listen to me,” Mandie called to the crowd from the front porch. The lamps in the hallway illuminated the area where she stood.

Joe joined her while Uncle Ned and Celia stood back, just inside the house.

When the crowd saw that it was just Mandie, they laughed at her. “Where is the woman of the house?” they yelled. “We don't talk to no young'un!”

Mandie strode to the top of the steps. “Please listen to me!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “I know a lot of you are from our church, and you claim to be Christians. Well, you're not acting Christlike tonight!”

The people nearest the house hushed to listen, and gradually the whole crowd quieted.

“The Bible says, ‘Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy,' ” she reminded them. “You are not showing mercy tonight. You are not behaving at all like Christians.”

“Just give us that man,” a man yelled. “He's the one who brought all this trouble on our town.”

“No, he didn't!” Mandie yelled back. “No human being has the power to bring curses on people, or to cause illness or anything else. You people who are Christians should know that. That's plain old superstition, and there's no place for such thinking in the minds of Christians.”

“Just give us that man!” the same man hollered again.

“I want to tell you about the man who was hiding in the church,” Mandie continued.

The crowd immediately hushed.

“That man is so poor and disabled that he had to eat out of trash cans,” she said. “He had no one left to care whether he lived or died—no one to take care of him.” She took a deep breath and went on. “He happened to see a man rush out of Mr. Simpson's store and drop an apple. When he picked it up, Mr. Simpson falsely accused him of stealing. He had done nothing wrong, but he was afraid because he
had no one to turn to. He hid in the church, hoping someone would come along who would help him.”

“Why didn't he ask somebody to help him?” a woman yelled.

“Because he didn't think he knew anyone in this town,” Mandie answered. “He didn't know anyone he could trust. You see, he was living in the Nantahala Mountains with his son. Then his son died, and the man had a stroke and was unable to work. Besides, he's very old.”

“Well, Mr. Simpson said he stole from him,” a man insisted.

“Tell Mr. Simpson to step forward if he's out there with you,” Mandie ordered. “We'll straighten that out right now. Where is Mr. Simpson?”

“He ain't here,” a woman said.

“He can't even fight his own battles, is that it?” Mandie mocked. “He has to get the town in an uproar to fight for him?”

“Where is that man who was hiding in the church?” a woman asked.

“He's right here in this house,” Mandie replied. “My grandmother has taken him into her home. Most of you know my grandmother. She would never protect a criminal. You know that.”

“How do we know you're telling the truth?” someone yelled.

“Because we also have in this house, and under arrest by the sheriff, the man who did steal from Mr. Simpson. He is the same man who robbed the bank in Charlotte. He—”

The crowd went wild. “A bank robber!” they yelled. “In this house?”

Joe moved closer to Mandie and gave her a little pat on the shoulder for encouragement.

“Please let me explain! Please!” Mandie pleaded with the angry crowd.

Finally the people calmed down enough to listen.

“The bank robber was shot at the bank in Charlotte, and we found him out in the woods,” Mandie explained. “Dr. Woodard is looking after him, and a sheriff's deputy will be guarding him. As soon as he is able to be moved, he will be put in jail.”

An old man stepped forward within the range of the light from the hallway and spoke. “I believe you, little lady. But the man did damage to the house of the Lord, and he ought to be punished for that.”

The crowd waited silently for Mandie's reply.

“But that's not for an angry mob to decide,” she reminded them. “That's the business of the church members, not the whole town. And not like this.”

“I guess you're right, little lady,” the old man said. He turned to the crowd. “It's time we'se all in our own homes,” he yelled. “Let's go!”

A loud murmuring rippled through the crowd.

“Please go home,” Mandie begged. “If you're the Christians you claim to be, you'll go on home. ‘Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy.' ”

One by one, the crowd turned slowly to leave. Mandie's heart was suddenly thumping wildly as she realized what she had done, standing up to this crowd. “Good night, everyone,” she called with a slight quiver in her voice. “God bless you.”

Several in the crowd repeated her words back to her.

Without turning around, Mandie whispered to Joe, “Joe, I can't move!” she said. “I just realized what I did! They could have mobbed us!”

Joe put his arm around her, gently turning her toward the door. “You sure had me scared to death,” he said as they entered the house. “I just knew they were all going to come on into the house!”

Joe closed the door behind them.

Uncle Ned stepped forward, put his arm around Mandie, and led her into the parlor. “Papoose, I proud of you,” he said. “Jim Shaw would be proud of Papoose.”

Mandie collapsed on the sofa. “Thank you, Uncle Ned,” she replied. “Something just came over me, and I had to speak up for Mr. Phineas. I don't know what made me do it.”

When Mrs. Taft returned to the parlor with Dr. Woodard and Phineas, they were astounded to hear what had happened.

Mrs. Taft started shaking. “You could have been killed, Amanda!” she exclaimed.

“But she wasn't,” Dr. Woodard reminded her. “And she has cleared Phineas's reputation.” He smiled at Mandie. “I think you'd make a good lawyer, Amanda—if we had such things as women lawyers.”

“No, thank you,” Mandie said. “Joe is going to be the lawyer.”

Celia stared at her friend in amazement. “I could never have done what you did, Mandie,” she said.

By the time the sheriff returned with reinforcements, the crowd had completely dispersed, and all he had to do was leave one deputy to guard the still-unconscious prisoner.

There was no more trouble in the town, and Uncle Ned went home.

By the end of the week, Kent Stagrene, the bank robber, had regained consciousness and was well enough to be moved to the jail.

Mandie had kept the key, after showing it to the sheriff.

“I'll just keep it, Sheriff Jones,” Mandie told him the day he moved Kent Stagrene from her grandmother's house. “Who knows, I might just find the box it goes to.” They were alone in the front hallway.

“What if we find those people? We may need the key,” the sheriff said. “Besides, that key belongs to the bank and I think we ought to return it.”

“I'll bring it to you in a day or two,” she said.

“Miss Amanda, I don't want you getting into any trouble with that key,” Sheriff Jones said. “If word got around that you had the key, those gangsters with the strongbox might just come after it.”

“But nobody knows I have it except you and my family here,” Mandie said. “I promise. I'll bring it to you in a day or two. Please.”

The sheriff looked into those blue eyes, so much like those of her mother whom he had once known, and finally smiled and said, “All right. Just a day or two now. Remember, no longer.”

As soon as the sheriff left, Mandie hurried to find Joe and Celia. They gathered in the sunroom to talk.

“I'm going to have to give up this key,” Mandie told them. “What can we do about finding that strongbox before I let the sheriff have this key?”

“Now, Mandie, you are dealing with real gangsters when you try to get involved in this,” Joe warned.

“Just tell me where you think they would hide the box,” Mandie insisted, ignoring Joe's warning.

Celia spoke up. “Those people may not even be in this town any longer.”

“That's right,” Joe agreed. “There's no way we could find that box.”

“We'll see,” Mandie said.

The next morning the sheriff came knocking on the door, asking for Mandie. The adults were all gone and the young people were in the parlor. Ella ushered Sheriff Jones into the room.

“Well, Miss Amanda, I guess I need that key, if you don't mind,” the sheriff told her.

“Did you find the box?” Mandie asked eagerly.

“We not only found the box, we also found that man and woman who had stolen it from Kent Stagrene,” Sheriff Jones explained.

“Where are they? Can we see them?” Mandie wanted to know.

“Mandie, what do you want to see those people for?” Joe asked impatiently.