CLUES FROM AUNT MANDY
Aunt Mandy ushered Josie into a cheerful, shabby parlor. The furniture
was a mixture of fine old mahogany, cheap varnished oak, and odds
and ends of wicker and mission. There were some beautiful dignified
portraits, hanging cheek by jowl with simpering chromos of girls
kissing roses and stern faced persons, represented by crayon drawings
of enlarged photographs in plush frames. There was a soft coal fire in
the broad, deep grate and the flames leapt merrily up the sooty flue.
Josie was chilled to the bone and was grateful for the warmth and cheer
of the room.
“I low as how you’d like a cup er cawfee this very minute,” suggested
Aunt Mandy. “Breakfas’ ain’t quite ready but de cawfee air givin’ out a
odium dat means it air jes’ about done. Suppos’n’ you come on back to
de kitchen an’ let Mandy fix you up a tray, if you ain’t too proud ter
eat in de kitchen?”
“I’m proud to be allowed to eat in the kitchen,” smiled Josie. “I don’t
often get in a real kitchen. I have nothing but a kitchenette.”
“Humph! I don’ know what dat am but it sounds ter me like it’s a
kitchen whar folks done et ’stid of a dinin’ room.”
Josie laughed merrily and explained, to Mandy’s delight, that it was a
little kitchen not much bigger than a china closet.
“An’ what air you a-doin’ here in Lou’ville on Chris’mus mornin,’
chil’? Ain’t you got no folks?”
“No real folks--that is none that belong to me,” said Josie sadly. She
remembered the old days with her father and could not keep back a tiny
tear that rolled from the corner of her eye before she could stop it.
“Now, now, honey! You kin jes’ be to home here wiv Miss Lucy an’ me.
Lots er folks have spent Chris’mus wiv us an’ ’tain’t sech a bad place
ter be on dat day, I kin tell yer. Now you drink yo’ cawfee. Bless Bob,
if de sun hain’t done bust through the fawg! It’s gonter be a bright
day arfter all.”
The old woman beamed on her guest, who was seated in the big kitchen
sipping coffee from a huge blue willow-ware cup, minus a handle. The
coffee was delicious and there was a pleasing aroma stealing from the
oven that told of hot rolls almost done.
“An’ whatcher say you air doin’ here in Lou’ville?” asked Aunt Mandy.
Josie hadn’t said, but she had her answer ready and it was a good
answer--one she meant to make come true.
“I help run a little shop in my town and I’m hunting up some things
for that shop,” she explained. What she told of the nature of the shop
delighted and interested Mandy. So Josie went on to explain:
“I want to find someone who plaits rag rugs and also someone who makes
hand-made brooms, that round kind with split oak handles.”
“Well, bless Bob, if you ain’t done struck de right pusson to d’rick
you!” exclaimed Aunt Mandy. “I got a kinder cousin what lives out back
er Peewee Valley an’ she air de greates’ han’ fer cyarpet plaitin’ an’
quilt piecin’ I ever seed, an’ her ol’ man kin make the nices’ brooms
an’ split oak cheers in dis hyar lan’ o’ Kaintuck. Dey do say dat he
learnt his trade at the pen’tent’ary, but dat don’ matter nuthin a
tall. De thing is he air got a trade, what is mo’n mos’. Sis Minerva
an’ Brer Abe is dey names.”
“Peewee Valley, you say?” Josie remembered that was where Ursula’s
friends, the Trasks, lived.
“Yessum! Jes’ up back er Peewee! You kin take ’lectric cyar right down
here at de interbourbon station. Dey am moughty bold a-namin’ a station
arfter Bourbon whiskey when it air ’gainst de law ter sell it no mo’,
but I reckon so many bottles air been a carried back an’ fo’th on dat
road from Lou’ville ter Peewee Valley dat de name done stuck fer good.”
Josie laughed delightedly and asked for further information concerning
the cousin who was such a wonder at quilts and rag rugs.
“Well, you git off’n de cyar right at Colonel Trask’s. De driver’ll
tell you what dat is. Everybody knows Colonel Trask an’ his wife, Miss
Anita Bowles as was.”
Then followed minute directions as to lanes and stiles and short cuts
through gaps in fences, which Josie must take to find the cousin. Josie
felt the detective business was too easy if information was handed out
in this manner without any questions on her part. Peewee Valley--the
Trasks! The very things she wanted to know and now she knew how to find
them without so much as asking a question!
“Did you ever know some people here named Ellett?” Josie asked. “A Mr.
Philip Ellett. I believe he died and his widow married again. I know
some people who used to know them.”
“Sho I knowed ’em. Po’ li’l’ fool! She’s daid too, now.”
“Oh, is she?”
“Yessum--daid, an’ dat man Cheatham livin’ in de Ellett house, which
ain’t fur from here; in fac’, we backs on de same alley. I done hear
tell he driv his stepchillun off’n de premus. Some say he owns de
house, havin’ paid cash money down fer it an’ he couldn’t live wiv his
steps ’cause de boy done tried ter kill him an’ de gal was a holpin’
of him. But I knows dat old Cheatham too well to believe no sich tale.
If dey was any killin’ goin’ on he was de killer an’ not de killdee.
Anyhow de chilluns am gone off somewhars an’ he am a holdin’ high
carnal whur his wife’s fust husban’s folks done liv’ long befo’ de wah
an’ long befo’ dat.”
“He must be a horrid man.”
“Horrid ain’t de word, but he done got some folks in Lou’ville fooled
case he air right smooth talkin’ an’ he could keep a piece er col’
butter in his mouth all day ’thout its meltin’. He wa’ a boa’din hyar
wiv Miss Lucy when he married de widow Ellett an’ I hears lots er talk
back an’ fo’th concernin’ him an’ de bride. The boa’ders was divided
’bout him: some holdin’ he wa’ a very pleasant gemman, an’ dey wa’
mostly de maiden ladies, an’ others dat he wa’ a scamp an’ slick as dey
make ’em. He wa’ too shifty-eyed fer me an’ too free with his orders
an’ too constrained-like with his cash money.”
“Is he stingy?” laughed Josie.
“Stingy? Is he? Why dat dere man will squeeze a nickel so tight de
heads an’ tails git mixed up. He don’t min’ spendin’ money fo’ show.
I knowed a ooman what cooked fo’ dem when his wife was a-dyin’ on her
death baid an’ she said de po’ thing had all kinds er fine silks an’
satins an’ furs what he done buyed her but she didn’t have underclo’s
’nough ter flag a han’ cyar. I reckon he mus’ a-been a so’ trial to dem
steps cause dey paw an’ all de Elletts air jes’ tother way.”
“Didn’t the children have any relations?”
“Kin, you mean? Yes deir maw had a brother, Ben Benson, but he wa’
right put out ’bout his sister marryin’ agin an’ marryin’ sich a man
an’ he lit out an’ nobody ain’t seed hide or har er him sence. Some
says he’s daid an’ some says he’s diggin’ gol’ an’ maybe di’ments but
nobody don’t rightly know whar dat Ben air took hisse’f.”
“Has this Mr. Cheatham married again or does he live all alone in the
big Ellett house?”
“No’m, he ain’t married but dey do say he air took up with a nuss named
Fitchet. He’ll git his ’serts if’n he gits her cause I done seed enough
er that ooman to speak the truf ’bout her. One time she nussed one of
us-alls boa’ders an’ whilst dey do say she’s a good nuss an’ takes
good keer er de sick she sho am some rest breaker fo’ de niggers. She
had me waitin’ on her han’ an’ foot an’ fo’ de fust time sence me’n
Miss Lucy’s been running dis house I come moughty nigh pickin’ up an’
leavin’ her. ’Twas Mandy dis an’ Mandy dat ’til I wished the debil had
her.”
This was exactly the character Ursula had given Fitchet and Josie was
glad to have Mandy verify it. The old woman then rambled on at Josie’s
instigation to tell her other Louisville gossip until the information
she had given concerning the business in hand was completely swamped
in her mind by other more stirring happenings and when Miss Lucy Leech
finally made her appearance to begin the business of looking out for
her boarders the cook had forgotten all about the Elletts and was under
the impression the new boarder was especially interested in the direful
happenings of a one time famous wedding, when half the county had been
mysteriously poisoned.
Miss Lucy sailed into the kitchen with the air of entering the queen’s
drawing-room. She seemed not at all surprised to find a new boarder
sharing the warmth of the kitchen with the old cook. Miss Lucy was used
to Mandy and her ways and accepted both. She met Josie with an air of
condescension that put that young person in the category of being a
kind of pensioner instead of a boarder.
“Certainly we can take you for a while at least,” she said when Mandy
explained who Josie was and what she wanted. Josie was amused to see
that Mandy’s information concerning her business and antecedents had
grown considerably and she made such a convincing tale of her affairs
that she began to feel quite important.
“Peter done sen’ her,” Aunt Mandy continued. “Peter he done know all
about her an’ when Peter speaks up fo’ white folks you know dey is
white folks fo’ fair. Yassum, Peter sent her an’ Si brung her.”
“Be sure and ask Peter and Si in for some eggnogg and a piece of black
cake,” Miss Lucy commanded.
“Thank you, ma’m! Thank you ma’m!” exclaimed Aunt Mandy, not divulging
that the invitation had already been extended. Mandy knew very well how
to manage her mistress, and that was never to let her know whose was
the hand that directed the destinies of the boarding house.
“I’ll take dis hyar young lady up to her room, if you think bes’, Miss
Lucy, an’ den I’ll hump myse’f an’ dish up dis fust breakfas’.”