Leppard, Lois Gladys - [Mandie 02] by Mandie & the Cherokee Legend (v1.0)

Author:Mandie & the Cherokee Legend (v1.0) [html] [Mandie & Legend, the Cherokee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-21T19:51:19+00:00

Chapter 7 - The Pit

“Are y’all ready to go prospectin?” Joe called through the wall in the upstairs room the next morning as the rooster crowed in Uncle Wirt’s yard below.

“Yep!” Mandie yelled back as she jumped out of bed and stretched. Snowball followed her.

“I will go with you,” Sallie said as she rose to reach for her dress hanging on a nail.

“Beat you downstairs!” Joe called, and the girls could hear him scrambling down the ladder.

The adults were already sitting around the table. It seemed no matter how early the young ones got up, the older ones were always there first.

“I was just going to wake you,” her mother said. “On this trip to the cave we are going prepared. You must eat a good breakfast, and we will carry more food. I understand we have an uphill climb on a footpath after we leave the wagon on the road, so we can’t carry anything heavy.”

“Besides, we have to carry lots of lanterns,” Mandie told her. “It’s awfully dark in that cave.”

“Yes, and I have lots of rope handy, too,” Uncle John added.

“Shouldn’t we take something to bring the gold back in?” asked Joe as he sat down to eat beside the girls.

“Oh, yes, the men will take something to put it in—if we find it,” John smiled.

“Gold—bad luck,” Uncle Ned mumbled as he rose from the table.

“Hurry. We go soon,” Uncle Wirt told the young people as he also stood up. “Eat.”

Mandie laughed. “That’s one English word my Cherokee kinpeople all know—eat.” She dug into her bowl of cornmeal mush.

“Eat—that’s a good word to know,” Joe said.

“Do you like what our people eat? Do you eat the same thing when you are at home?” Sallie asked the two as she began eating her mush.

Mandie and Joe looked at each other.

“Well, yes, almost the same thing.” Mandie paused. “Everything I have eaten since I came to Cherokee country has been delicious.”

“At home we have fatback and red-eye gravy sometimes, and grits,” Joe added.

Elizabeth was packing meat and bread in several separate packages. “Let’s make haste now,” she called. “We don’t want to be too late coming back.” Turning to John, she asked, “Tsa’ni never came with our things from Uncle Ned’s house, did he?”

“No,” he replied. “We can stop and get them on the way back.”

As they went through the community at Deep Creek, they asked several people, but no one had seen Tsa’ni. They left Morning Star at her cabin and said they would stop for their things on the way back. Tsa’ni’s mother was not in her cabin as they stopped by.

Uncle Ned mumbled, “Bad Cherokee.”

Uncle Wirt, his grandfather, agreed, “Tsa’ni not good.”

However, there was one Indian boy they could depend upon. Dimar was sitting on a rock near the waterfall waiting for them when they got there. His eyes fastened on Mandie again. He rose and came forward.

“Good morning,” he greeted them.

“Good morning, Dimar,” Uncle John replied. “You haven’t seen Tsa’ni around, have you? He never did come to Bird-town.

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