Read The Mandie Collection Online
Authors: Lois Gladys Leppard
On the evening of the party, Mandie and Celia dressed nervously in their room. Celia wore a pale lavender muslin dress with green lace and ribbons. She arranged her auburn hair in curls and tied them back with a matching green ribbon. Around her neck hung a delicate cameo on a thin gold chain.
Mandie had chosen her pale pink chiffon dress accented with deeper pink rose petals. Her blonde hair hung loosely in ringlets around her shoulders. She wore a tiny silver locket that contained pictures of her father and mother.
Twirling in front of the long mirror in the corner, she laughed. “Hey, is that really Amanda Elizabeth Shaw? I look so old.”
Celia came to stand by her. “So do I. I suppose we have to grow up some time, but I don't think I'm going to like it.”
“You will by the time you get there,” Mandie assured her. “Just think, we won't have to go to school anymore. We can stay home with our families.”
“No, you're wrong there,” Celia said. “I don't have any brothers and sisters, and neither do you. We'll both be expected to get married and have babies so the family won't run out.”
“No, you're the one who's wrong,” Mandie replied. “Once we're grown we'll have minds of our own. If we want to get married, we will. And if we don't, we won't.”
“I suppose you'll marry that boy Joe you told me about.”
“Joe and Iâ” Suddenly the bell interrupted her reply. “That means it's time for us to go downstairs.”
Celia gulped. “Do I have everything on that I'm supposed to? Is it all arranged properly?” she asked.
“You look fine, Celia. Let's go.”
By the time all the girls assembled on the veranda, the three surreys full of boys had arrived. Uncle Cal hurried out to help with the rigs and horses.
The schoolmaster left the first surrey and made sure the boys met their partners in an orderly fashion.
Tommy and Robert immediately spotted Mandie and Celia as they approached the porch steps.
Tommy teasingly bowed to Mandie. “Miss Amanda!”
Robert imitated him. “Miss Celia!” he said.
The girls held back a giggle as they greeted them.
“My, my!” Mandie exclaimed, eyeing their fine dark suits. “You look like real gentlemen tonight.”
Tommy pulled at his collar. “These things are terribly uncomfortable,” he complained.
“I'm not sure I can eat very much with all this on, either,” Robert added. He sat down beside Celia on the veranda.
Celia smiled at him. “I'm not sure I can eat at all.”
“Me either,” Mandie said. “The girls cooked all the food and it may not be fit to eat.”
“We'll manage,” Tommy assured her.
Mandie found herself comparing Tommy with her lifetime friend, Joe. Tommy and Joe both had that happy, carefree spirit, but Tommy was taller and looked a little older. She wondered what Joe would look like dressed up in an expensive suit like Tommy's. Joe never wore a suit except to church. And he did wear one to her mother's wedding. But the suits he wore were not finely tailored like these. Still, Joe was her kind of people. And he had told her he wanted to marry her when they grew up.
Miss Prudence cleared her throat loudly. “It is time to go to the barn in the backyard,” she announced.
“The barn?” Tommy shrieked. “You mean we're going to have a dinner in a
barn?
” He looked down at his fancy clothes.
Mandie laughed. “It's not what you think,” she explained. “The barn isn't used for animals. They've made it into a theater for the school's dramatics class.”
As the two girls and their partners entered the building, the boys whistled in appreciation of what they found inside.
“You girls have really been busy,” Tommy remarked.
“Thank you for noticing,” Mandie said with a giggle. “Now, we're supposed to find our places. We're at the second table next to Celia and Robert.”
The four of them walked down the side of the table directly under the loft opening. Celia stopped. “Here are mine and yours, Robert,” she said. “Mandie and Tommy are supposed to be next to us.”
They all looked, but Mandie's and Tommy's place cards were not there.
Mandie was puzzled. “I know they're supposed to be here. Someone must have switched them.”
At that instant, a small piece of straw dropped from the loft above. Mandie looked up. There was a flash of red as someone moved out of sight. April! It had to be! Since she couldn't come to the party because of Mandie, April was determined to make more trouble for her.
Celia saw Mandie looking up. They exchanged knowing glances.
“I think we have an uninvited guest,” Mandie whispered to Celia.
By then everyone had found a place and was standing behind a chair waiting to be seated. Mandie and her friends felt embarrassed as Miss Prudence frowned at the four of them standing behind only two chairs.
When the schoolmistress realized what the situation was, she came and asked everyone to move down a little so that two places could be added at the table. While Mandie and Miss Prudence discussed the matter, Robert and Tommy found two chairs across the room and brought them over.
“We'll get to the bottom of this later,” Miss Prudence promised. “I'll have Aunt Phoebe bring more silver and china.”
Mandie risked a question. “Miss Prudence, is April Snow in her room?”
The woman looked sharply at Mandie. “She had better be.” “There's someone in the loft,” Mandie said quietly without looking up.
“I'll take care of it,” Miss Prudence answered. She returned quickly to her place at the head of the table and asked everyone to be seated.
A few minutes later, as Uncle Cal passed by Miss Prudence, she stopped him and spoke to him. The old man glanced upward, then walked to the back of the barn and climbed the ladder to the loft. Mandie watched as he disappeared upstairs. In a moment he came
back down the ladder and shook his head at the schoolmistress. Miss Prudence turned her gaze upon Mandie.
Tommy had been watching the whole thing. “What was that all about?” he asked.
“I told Miss Prudence I saw someone in the loft, so I guess she sent Uncle Cal to look. Evidently he didn't find anyone, but there's another way out. There's a ladder at the window on the outside,” Mandie told him.
“And how do you know?” he teased.
“Because I've used it,” Mandie answered. “We had to take things out of the loft for this party, and I helped.”
Tommy grinned at her. “You're quite a girlâor young ladyâI guess I'm supposed to say,” he corrected himself.
There wasn't a lot of conversation during dinner. The boys were too busy devouring everything in sight. Evidently the girls' cooking experiments were a success.
After the meal, the minstrel show began. The enthusiastic applause was followed by encore after encore. Eventually Miss Prudence shook her tinkling silver bell and announced that it was time to say good night.
Later in their room, Mandie and Celia chattered about the evening.
Celia plopped down on the bed. “Robert is really nice,” she said, beginning to get ready for bed.
“Yes, he is,” Mandie agreed, “and so is Tommy. He's going to write me a letter.”
“Robert said he wanted to call on me one day soon, but I said I didn't think we were old enough for that.”
Mandie nodded and picked up her nightgown. “You're right. Besides, we've got other things to do. We have to learn everything this school wants to teach us so we can get out of here,” she said, pulling her nightgown over her head.
Mandie sighed deeply, picked up her Bible from the table by the bed, and sat down. “Tomorrow is Sunday. I need to read my Sunday school lesson before I go to bed,” she said. Celia took her
Bible and sat on her side of the bed. “We still have ten minutes before we have to put out the light,” she replied.
“Our lesson is on the Beatitudes in Matthew,” Mandie said. “I sure need to learn all this. It's so hard to love your enemies. I don't think I've been doing a very good job with April.”
“Mandie, nobody's perfect. I'm sure God will forgive you for telling Miss Prudence your suspicions about April in the loft. She deserved that.”
“But, Celia, it doesn't matter whether or not the other person deserves it. We aren't supposed to do bad things to people when they do bad things to us.”
“That's all right up to a certain point. But you had to tell on April. This whole thing is getting out of hand.”
“Listen to this,” Mandie told her. “Read chapter five, verse forty-four. âBut I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.' ” Mandie looked up from reading. “You see, we're even supposed to love people who are mean to us.”
“But how can you love someone who acts like April? She's impossible!”
“Celia, I don't know whatâ” The ten o'clock bell interrupted Mandie's answer. “I guess we'll have to blow out the light, now.”
They closed their Bibles, placed them on the table, and Mandie extinguished the lamp.
The girls crawled into bed and were soon dozing.
Suddenly, the clanging, squeaking noise startled them awake. They sat up in bed. The noise overhead sounded even louder this time. Celia grabbed for Mandie in fright.
“Let's go up there,” Mandie said. She jumped out of bed. “Only this time we'll take a lamp with us.”
“But what if we get caught?”
“Nobody's going to catch us. Come on,” Mandie urged. She lit the lamp and picked it up.
Celia stayed close behind Mandie as they tiptoed out to the hallway. Suddenly the house was completely quiet.
“The noise stopped. Let's go back,” Celia begged, pulling at Mandie's nightgown.
“No, Celia. We only need one trip up to the attic to see what's making the noise,” Mandie said with determination. She started up the dark steps. “I'm going.”
Celia gave in and followed. As the two girls approached the attic, they could see that the door at the top of the stairway was closed. Mandie reached forward and pushed the door open slowly. She held the lamp inside the doorway and looked around. The lamp threw only a small amount of light in the dark attic.
Mandie stepped forward. “Look at all the old furniture in here,” she whispered. “I don't see a thing that could have been making the noise.”
Celia stayed close to her friend. “Let's go, Mandie,” she begged. “There's nothing here.”
Mandie stumbled over something. The glass chimney on the lamp crashed to the floor. Mandie blew out the light. She couldn't let the flame burn unprotected.
Then, in the darkness, from the other side of the attic, came the clanging metal and the squeaking board noises. The girls turned and ran, stumbling down the dark stairs as fast as they could go. When they reached the last step, they saw a light coming toward them. Before they could find a place to hide, Miss Prudence appeared in her long trailing nightgown at the bottom of the stairway.
She held her lamp up to see the girls' faces. “Aha! So you two
do
prowl around after ten o'clock,” she accused. “What have you been doing up in the attic?” Glancing down, she noticed the lamp base in Mandie's hand. “And where is the shade to that lamp?”
Mandie bit her lip. “I'm sorry, Miss Prudence. I broke it. I tripped and it fell off,” she explained. “I'll pay for it.”
“Yes, you'll pay for it. And you'll also pay for being out of your room. You two will be confined there for ten days except for church,
and classes, and meals. And if you don't abide by the rules, it will be much more serious than that. Do you both understand?”
Mandie hung her head. “Yes, ma'am, Miss Prudence,” she replied.
“Yes, ma'am,” Celia echoed.
“Now, what were you two doing up in that attic at this time of night?” the schoolmistress demanded.
“We've been hearing noises in the attic,” Mandie answered. “And tonight the noises seemed to be louder, so we went to investigate.”
“Noises? What kind of noises?”
“It sounds like metal banging, and we could hear boards squeaking like someone walking around up there,” Mandie told her.
“Metal banging and someone walking in the attic? How farfetched can you get?” She turned the girls around and ushered them down the hallway toward their room.
“But, Miss Prudence, we're serious,” Mandie protested. “We've been hearing noises like that ever since we came to school.”
“We have, Miss Prudence, several times,” Celia added.
The woman stopped and looked doubtfully at the two girls. “All right,” she conceded. “I'll get Uncle Cal to look in the attic tomorrow. He'll have to go up there anyway to clean up the broken glass. Now, not another word out of either of you.” She pointed the girls to their door. “Get in that room and don't come out until breakfast time tomorrow.”
The girls quickly obeyed and closed the door behind them. They listened for Miss Prudence to go down the hallway, then began whispering in the darkness of their room.
“What a bad break!” Mandie exclaimed. “If I hadn't broken that lamp shade, we might have found something up there.”
“Well, I guess the fun is over.” Celia sighed and crawled into bed.
“Oh, no, it isn't.” Mandie slipped under the covers on her side. “I still plan to see what's up there.”
“Mandie, you don't dare!”
“Oh, yes, I do! And don't tell me you're afraid to go with me.” “But, Mandie, there's no telling what will happen to us if we're caught again.”
“We won't be caught again.”
“But you always say that,” Celia complained.
“Next time we'll be more careful,” Mandie promised. “But, Celia, you don't have to go with me if you don't want to.”