The Mandie Collection

CONTENTS

MANDIE AND THE COURTROOM BATTLE

Chapter   1   Who Did It?

Chapter   2   Liza Confesses

Chapter   3   Where Is That Will?

Chapter   4   At the Courthouse

Chapter   5   With Love

Chapter   6   Secrets

Chapter   7   Where Did Everybody Go?

Chapter   8   Strange Behavior

Chapter   9   In the Cellar

Chapter 10   Papers

Chapter 11   Almost Burned Up!

Chapter 12   And That's That!

CHAPTER ONE

WHO DID IT?

Mandie Shaw and her grandmother, Mrs. Taft, took the train from Asheville to Franklin, North Carolina, where Mandie lived with her uncle John Shaw and her mother, Elizabeth. The Shaws' caretaker, Jason Bond, met them at the depot.

As the train slowed to a stop, Mandie looked out the window of their car to see who was picking them up. The depot served as a gathering place for the country people who came into town on Saturday, and there was a crowd standing about watching the train come in. She spotted Jason Bond at the edge of the platform. She stood up and held firmly to her white cat, Snowball.

Mrs. Taft led the way down the aisle and out the door where Mr. Bond stepped forward to assist her down to the platform. “Morning, ma'am,” he said. “Everyone is waiting for you all.”

Mrs. Taft looked at him as he took her bag and asked, “What do you mean by ‘everyone,' Mr. Bond? Are the Woodards here, too?”

The tall, gray-haired man smiled as Mandie stepped down from the train, and he replied, “No, ma'am, I meant Mr. John, Miz Elizabeth, and Aunt Lou, Liza, and Abraham and Jenny. Everybody knew y'all were coming so they've been cleaning and cooking and getting things ready.” He looked down at Mandie and added, “Glad to see you home, Missy 'Manda.”

“And I'm always glad to come home,” Mandie replied. Then turning to her grandmother she said, “But we're going to the Woodards' to stay while they're having this thing in court, so I don't imagine they would have come all the way out here.” They walked on toward the rig Mr. Bond had brought.

“Yes, you're right, dear, but I thought maybe Dr. Woodard might have had patients to see in Franklin and could just be waiting for us,” Mrs. Taft replied.

“Ma'am, what baggage do y'all have so I can go get it?” Mr. Bond asked.

“Oh yes, we have one small trunk each,” Mrs. Taft replied as he helped her into the rig. “We had no idea as to how long this would take.”

“I'll be right back,” Mr. Bond said as Mandie followed her grandmother into the vehicle. He turned and hurried into the depot.

After Mr. Bond had deposited their two trunks into the back of the rig, he climbed aboard, shook the reins, and got the horse moving forward.

When they arrived at John Shaw's huge house, Mandie rushed ahead to open the front door. Snowball immediately escaped from her arms and disappeared down the hallway.

Elizabeth and John Shaw were waiting for them in the parlor before a warm fire. October had put a chill into the air.

“Are you feeling better now, Mother?” Mandie asked as she pushed back the hood of her cloak, removed her gloves, and hurried to embrace her mother.

“Yes, dear, lots better,” Elizabeth told her as Mandie bent over to hug her. “I've about recovered from that old fever.” She smiled with blue eyes meeting her daughter's blue eyes.

Mandie turned to Uncle John, who rose from a nearby seat. “And I love you, too,” she told him as she grasped his hand. “Especially since you are married to my mother and you are here to take care of her when I'm not around.”

“And I love my little blue eyes,” Uncle John said with a big smile. He reached for Mrs. Taft's gloved hand and said, “Of course we're always happy to have you visit.”

“Thank you, John,” Mrs. Taft said as she sat down beside Elizabeth
and reached to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I believe you are looking much better, dear,” she told her daughter.

“Much better,” Elizabeth agreed as she squeezed her mother's hand. “I'm glad you could come with Amanda for this ordeal we're going to have in court.”

“You know me well enough to realize I'm not about to be left out of anything like this concerning my granddaughter or my daughter,” Mrs. Taft replied. “I spoke to my attorney about this woman Etta showing up with what she says is Jim Shaw's last will, and he is available if we need him.”

Mandie removed her navy cloak and laid it on a chair. She sat down on the footstool in front of her mother and looked at her uncle. “When are we going to Bryson City, Uncle John?” she asked. “And to the Woodards' house?”

“First thing Monday morning,” he replied.

“This shouldn't take too long, should it, since you have already recorded Jim Shaw's will that Amanda and Joe found?” Mrs. Taft asked.

John Shaw moved uncomfortably in his chair as he cleared his throat and replied, “I'm afraid we have a problem....” He paused.

Mandie quickly asked, “A problem, Uncle John?”

“Yes, you see, I brought the will home from your grandmother's house, Amanda, after you and Joe had found it,” he began explaining. “I locked it in my desk until I could get time to go to the Bryson City courthouse. Well, when I went to get it this morning, I'm afraid it wasn't there. The lock on the desk had been broken.” He looked deeply troubled.

“Oh no!” Mandie said with a loud gasp.

“Oh, dear!” Mrs. Taft exclaimed. “We
do
have a problem with that woman Etta showing up with another will.”

“She claims it is Jim's last will, but I don't believe her,” John Shaw said. “I don't think my brother would leave everything to her when he died, because that marriage never worked out, from what I gather. It was done in haste after his marriage with Elizabeth ended.”

“But he was still married to this Etta woman when he passed away,” Mrs. Taft reminded him.

“I know, but Jim wrote to me not long before he died, saying that he would be leaving everything he owned at his death to Amanda, and
I plan on taking that letter with me to court. I don't know how much good it will do, but it is in his handwriting and has his signature on it,” John Shaw told her.

“But, Uncle John,” Mandie said. “Who could have broken into your desk? What else did they take?”

“Nothing else was missing, dear. Evidently whoever it was only wanted the will,” he explained. “And I have no idea as to who would have even known the will was in my desk.”

“And everyone in the household knows he keeps his office locked, and the servants are forbidden to go in there if the door is ever left open,” Elizabeth added as she smoothed back her blond hair.

“It must have been someone who has a key to your office, John,” Mrs. Taft suggested.

John Shaw shook his head and said, “I am puzzled about that because the only keys to my office door are kept in our sitting room upstairs—in a very secret place, I might add—and they had not been moved.”

“There has got to be a solution to the puzzle somehow, but we haven't been able to figure it out yet,” Elizabeth said.

Mandie was thinking about the theft as the others talked. Who would have known that she and Joe Woodard had found the will made by her father? When he had died last year there was no mention of a will, or any other legal paper, in fact. Her stepmother, Etta, had farmed her out to the Brysons to look after their baby son, and then Etta had married Zack Hughes. Jim Shaw's old Cherokee friend, Uncle Ned, had helped Mandie find her uncle John Shaw's house in Franklin. And soon thereafter she had discovered that her real mother was living. And to top her joy, her mother then married Uncle John. But who could have stolen the will? No one knew it even existed until a few weeks ago when she and Joe Woodard had found it. And only their families were told about it.

Mandie was suddenly brought back to the present as she heard a loud knock on the front door and Aunt Lou's hearty welcome, saying, “Y'all jes' come right in now. All de folks be in de parlor dere.”

Quickly running to the hallway door to see who it was and to speak to her uncle's housekeeper, Mandie saw Dr. Woodard and his son Joe coming down the corridor as Aunt Lou closed the front door.

“Oh, Aunt Lou, I haven't even seen you since I got home,” Mandie
said with a big smile for the Woodards as she hurried past them to embrace the huge Negro woman.

“How's my chile doin' today?” Aunt Lou asked as she held Mandie against her ample bosom and smoothed the girl's long blond hair.

“Fine, Aunt Lou,” Mandie replied, looking up into the friendly face she loved so much. “I'll catch up with you later, and with Liza and the others, too.” She turned to follow the Woodards into the parlor after they had deposited their coats and hats on the hall tree.

As greetings were exchanged and Dr. Woodard sat down, he explained, “I had to come in to see Mrs. Moore this morning. Poor soul, she fell and bruised herself, but luckily no bones were broken. So I thought we might as well stay over and go back as y'all go Monday.”

“I figured you might be here,” Mrs. Taft said.

“We're glad to have y'all,” Elizabeth said.

“Yes, thanks for coming,” John told him.

Mandie and Joe sat down on a settee across the room.

“I sure am glad you're here,” Mandie told Joe as the others talked on. “We've got a job to do.”

“A job? What kind of job?” Joe asked as he ran his long fingers through his unruly brown hair.