Free The Mandie Collection by Lois Gladys Leppard

hallway.
    Aunt Lou stood at the front door, holding it open for Jake and Ludie Burns, who had just arrived. They stomped their feet on the front porch, then stepped inside. When they heard about Hilda’s disappearance, they offered to join the others in a search outside.
    Spreading out in different directions, they all searched every place anyone could possibly hide. But as time went on, they became more and more worried. The snow was getting heavier, the sky was getting darker, and the temperature was getting colder.
    Joe, Mandie, and Liza had just finished searching the barns on their way back from the fields when Abraham, the gardener, hurried out to them. “Come on back!” he called. “Come on back!”
    They hurried to catch up with him as he continued on to tell Mr. Bond and the Burnses to return to the house.
    â€œDat girl ain’t gwine nowhere,” Abraham mumbled. “She be in her bed sound asleep.”
    The young people looked at each other in wonderment.
    â€œShe’s asleep in her bed?” Mandie questioned the old Negro gardener.
    â€œDat where she be,” he replied. “Miz Taft, she send me to tell y’all.”
    Joe shook his head. “Of all the crazy things!” he exclaimed.
    â€œDat Hilda, she’s a slick ’un,” Liza commented.
    â€œOh, I feel like getting hold of her and shaking her until she tells where she’s been,” Mandie said as they walked toward the house.
    While Abraham went on to tell the others that Hilda had been found, Mandie, Joe, and Liza went inside to find out what happened.
    Mandie’s grandmother told them that she had found a shawl that Hilda had left in the living room that afternoon, and she took it upstairs to Hilda’s room. And there was Hilda, asleep in her bed. Since the girl couldn’t talk, or wouldn’t, there was no way to solve the mystery of where she had been.
    Mrs. Taft invited Jake and Ludie Burns to stay for supper that evening, and they gratefully accepted. Liza escorted Hilda downstairs for the meal, and all the tired, hungry searchers ate almost everything on the table for supper.
    Since there was no word from Elizabeth and John Shaw or the Woodards, they weren’t expected to be home that night.
    After supper, with Grandmother Taft’s permission, Joe and Mandie went up to the attic again, this time to find Christmas decorations for the Burnses. As they rummaged through drawers and trunks, they filled a box with all kinds of decorations for Jake and Ludie. Then they filled another box with the things they wanted to use to decorate the Shaws’ Christmas tree.
    Downstairs, they found the adults and Hilda gathered in the parlor. Mrs. Taft had Hilda sitting beside her on the settee. Mandie walked over to the chair where Mr. Burns was sitting and handed him the box of decorations they had chosen for him and Ludie. Then she sat on a small stool by the fireplace while Joe stood beside her.
    Jake Burns thanked Mandie awkwardly. “I think we better be gittin’ home,” he said. “It’s gittin’ awfully bad out there now.”
    Mrs. Taft spoke up. “Why don’t you and Ludie just spend the night here?” she said. “There are plenty of rooms. And then you can travel home in the daylight.”
    Jake and Ludie glanced at each other uncertainly.
    Jason Bond also urged them to stay. “After all, you were delayed by helping us hunt for Hilda,” he said. “Otherwise you’d have been home before dark.”
    Ludie Burns smiled. “Well, if you think it’ll be all right with Mr. Shaw . . .” she said.
    â€œOf course,” Mrs. Taft assured them. “Don’t worry about it.” She turned to her granddaughter. “Amanda, will you ask Liza to get a room ready for Mr. and Mrs. Burns for the night?”
    Mandie smiled at the old couple. “I’m glad you’re going to stay all night,” she said.