by Jan Karon
“Would you do something to make life worth living for the patients at Mitford Hospital? Would you be willing to read to them each and every morning? It’s a big job.”
“He’s a big God,” she said, with something that seemed like excitement.
In the space of precisely seven minutes, which he reckoned to be the full length of her visit, he had been told a terrible truth, discovered an answer to prayer, helped someone find a ministry, and been unutterably refreshed in his own spirit. Perhaps, he thought, we should all live as if we’re dying.
The letter arrived, bearing postage stamps with the queen’s likeness. The bells would be delayed again. Perhaps by Christmas . . .
He was disappointed. He had hoped the bells would ring at the time of the Owen baby’s birth. Ah, well, perhaps for the baptism, he thought as he walked home.
Tonight he would miss seeing Puny, which he was sure she would think he’d planned. After all, there was that bag of Dooley’s laundry that he’d set on the washing machine. As far he was personally concerned, his own shoes were shining, he had washed out his manure-soaked socks, and cleaned his own pants cuffs. Enough was enough.
He thought, too, of Olivia Davenport. Olivia didn’t want to waste time, for she had none to waste. On Wednesday, they would meet at the hospital at seven, and the first patient they’d visit would be the terminally ill Pearly McGee. Finally, there would be more than a pat and a prayer to be distributed along the halls.
He turned the corner toward home and heard the familiar, booming bark from the garage. He felt spare and light, like the weather, and looked forward to an early supper of Puny’s barbecued ribs.
Recently, he’d dared to let Barnabas off the leash, though only in his own backyard. Barnabas would dash to the hedge that separated the rectory from Baxter Park, do his business, and come bounding back, ready for a supersize Milk Bone.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he thought, this could become their bedtime ritual. It would take him out of the house for a breath of air and a look at the stars, provide Barnabas a moment of diversion, and answer any calls of nature, as well. It could even, in a pinch, get him off the hook for the nightly walk to the monument.
It was already dark when he set the dishes in the sink and turned the radio to a classical station that was more static than Mozart.
He stood at the screen door, assessing his companion’s mood. If Barnabas was excitable tonight, he’d put him on a leash, without question. But the dog stood beside him quietly, even reflectively. The strains of a violin obscured the low growl that erupted just as he opened the door.
Barnabas seemed to sail through the air, clearing the steps entirely and landing only inches from a white cat that was streaking across the yard.
Furious with himself, he watched Barnabas disappear through the hedge that bordered the neighboring yard, where he was surprised to see the glimmer of lighted windows.
“ ‘Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits’!” he shouted from a psalm as he raced toward the hedge.
Barnabas, however, could hear nothing above the din of an old-fashioned cat-and-dog fight.
Father Tim peered into the yard where the humiliated cat was racing up a hemlock tree. “Barnabas!” he yelled.
Barnabas stood at the foot of the tree, his thick fur bristling, filling the night with a bark that seemed to carry to the monument and echo back along the storefronts.
“ ‘Be filled with the spirit!’” he shouted. “ ‘Speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs!’ ” He never knew which Scripture would float to the surface in such emergencies.
“I’ll fill you with the spirit!” a voice announced. Suddenly, the beam of a flashlight shone directly into his eyes. “What are you doing in my hedge?”
“I am trying to retrieve my dog from this yard, what else would I be doing?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” the voice said coldly. “Come, then, and get this beast at once.”
The flashlight beam was removed from his eyes and, though he found himself momentarily blinded, he proceeded to shout a thundering verse from Jeremiah.
Barnabas crashed obediently through the rhododendron and sat trembling at his master’s feet. Father Tim grabbed him roughly by the collar.
“I’m very sorry, and I apologize,” he stated to the hedge, still unable to see who had spoken.
The new neighbor Mule Skinner had promised finally moved into the realm of her porch light, dressed in a robe and pajamas, and carrying a flashlight that she had mercifully put on low beam.
“Is this going to be the usual behavior of your . . . dog?” She said the word with a tinge of loathing.
“Quite possibly, if your cat continues to tear through our yard, dispensing with any shred of caution.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Then the woman laughed and extended her hand through a bare spot in the foliage.
“Cynthia Coppersmith,” she said, “and you must be Father Tim.”
“I am. And I’m sorry we’ve given you such a poor welcome. I promise I’ll make it up.” Her hand felt as small as a child’s, and warm.
“There’s no need,” she said. “I’m sorry, too.
Nerves, you know. Nothing has gone right with this move! Violet is all nerves herself. You know, cats don’t like moving, and I saw this man in my hedge, and Violet up a tree, and a dog the size of my refrigerator, and well . . .”
“I got off lightly, then.”
“Yes! You did!”
They both laughed.
“The movers broke my table legs, dashed a French mirror, dented my grandmother’s tea service, and heaven knows what other carnage I’ll discover when the dust settles.”
She peered in his direction over a pair of half-glasses. “I do hope you’ll stop in when things are calmer.”
“And you must stop in, as well,” he said, trying to quiet the whimpering creature at his side.
He took Barnabas to the house, holding on to his collar with great authority. Then he put him on a leash and walked with grim determination to the monument and back, muttering the whole way and unashamedly furious.
He had noted, at some point in their desperate conversation through the rhododendron, that his new neighbor was surprisingly attractive, even with a headful of pink curlers. Tomorrow afternoon, he concluded with neighborly zeal, he would bake a meatloaf and take it over. Better yet, he’d put out a Baxter apple pie to thaw. After all, Mitford was still a bastion of old-fashioned hospitality and generous spirit, and he must not fail to demonstrate this whenever the opportunity presented itself.
“A cat!” he said to himself, as he turned off the back porch light. “Of all things to have right next door, a blasted cat!”
The following evening, he heard a light rap at the back door. “I’ve come borrowing,” Cynthia Coppersmith said with a hopeful expression. “You see, my nephew is coming to help put down my toe moldings, and I thought I’d bake a cake.”
She extended a measuring cup.
“Oh, indeed! One must have toe moldings. Come right in, come in!” He couldn’t help but notice that Mule Skinner had been dead right— her legs were terrific.
Barnabas skidded into the kitchen, galloped toward Cynthia, rose on his hind legs, and put his paws squarely on her shoulders.
“Oh, my,” she said, “and how tall are you? I’m five-two!”
He tackled Barnabas, snapped on the leash, and attached him to the handle of the drawer containing the everyday silverware. “I’m sorry. Really I am.” Would this creature forever be fogging glasses, mowing people down in their tracks, muddying their clothes?
“Brown sugar or white?” he asked, breathlessly, taking the cup. “White, I suppose, for a cake.”
“White would be lovely. But brown would do just as well. Anything!”
He felt an odd mixture of confusion and delight. Having an unexpected knock at the rectory door was unusual, as he had been given a reticent parish who faithfu
lly called before coming.
“Smells good in here!” she exclaimed, sniffing about with curious pleasure.
“Barbecued ribs,” he confessed. Barbecued ribs for a clergyman? It was all a trifle self-indulgent, he thought, but a rare treat after endless weeks of Rector’s Meatloaf, which Puny now called Old Faithful.
“Do you know I haven’t eaten all day long? I meant to go to The Local, but it was one thing and then another, and I looked a fright, too. The water went off, you know. Something at the water main. But I couldn’t bathe, or make coffee, or scrub the cabinets. And Violet deposited a mouse on my kitchen rug.”
She seemed a bit worn, he thought. She could do with some cheering up. “A cup of tea would be nice. Or how about a glass of sherry?”
“Both, I think!” said his neighbor.
He had his guest sit at the kitchen counter. Talking happily, she sipped a glass of sherry, drank two cups of Darjeeling tea, ate three cold ribs and sopped the sauce with a poppy seed roll, while he stood by the stove, trying not to look at her legs. If Mule had never mentioned them, he probably wouldn’t have noticed, he thought; now he had to make a special effort to look her straight in the eye.
He was thankful that he had made a pan of gingerbread to take to the hospital the next morning, and so was his new neighbor, who devoured a large piece with enthusiasm, and afterward licked her fingers. Clearly, this gesture had not removed the last vestige of the gingerbread, for, afterward, as she reached to pat Barnabas on the head and say good night, he leaped to the seductive fragrance on her fingers, hauling the silverware drawer onto the floor and scattering its contents throughout the kitchen and into the freshly waxed hall.
A fork sailed on its backside all the way to the front door.
“Bingo!” exclaimed Cynthia.
They were both on their hands and knees for a full twenty minutes, collecting the muddle of twelve place settings, frilled party toothpicks, and a variety of spatulas and wooden spoons.
When he looked into the bathroom mirror that night, he was humiliated to see that there was barbecue sauce smeared on his chin—barbecue sauce that had, without a doubt, been there during Cynthia Coppersmith’s entire visit.
He was so stricken with a vain regret that he had to step outside for a breath of air.
“Of all things!” he said aloud. “Of all things!”
He had finally decided to tell Emma what had been told him in strictest confidence.
“You know, your role at Lord’s Chapel has made you privy to quite a few secrets.”
“I’ll say! And some I wish to goodness I’d never been told.”
“Well, this may be another of that very kind. Have you had any bright ideas about how to make Olivia Davenport and Hoppy . . . an item, as they say?”
“You bet I have, but I’ve been so busy with Harold Newland, I can’t hardly see straight.”
“You need to know, and it must never be repeated outside this room, that Olivia Davenport is dying.”
Emma sat very still and turned pale.
“I didn’t want to know that.”
“Well, I didn’t want to know it, either, and I didn’t want to tell you. But it appears to me that the very last thing we should do is try and make Hoppy Harper a widower two times in a row.”
Emma drummed her fingers on her typewriter. “How bad is it?”
“What do you mean how bad is it? Dying is dying.”
“I mean, how long does she have?”
“Months, she said. She referred to months.”
“Oh, well. I thought if it was a couple of years, maybe we could still . . .”
“Emma, you are . . . words fail me.”
“But they’re perfect for each other!” she persisted. “I just hate this! What’s she dyin’ from?”
“To tell the truth, I have no idea. That wasn’t the way the conversation went. In fact, that seemed the most insignificant detail in the world.”
“Boys howdy, I’m glad you’re not a reporter on the Muse.”
“No gladder than I.”
“Well,” she sighed. “I feel terrible about her. I hope I don’t go and be too nice to her now, like I know she’s dyin’. You know what I mean?”
“Just try to be your usual aggravating, ill-tempered self, and she’ll never suspect a thing.”
“Ha, ha.”
He looked through his phone messages.
“Did Hal say what he wanted?”
“Just said call him, he’s ready to tell you something you’ve been wantin’ to hear.”
“Thanks be to God! Evie Adams?”
“Said her mother has started puttin’ the wet wash in the oven; Miss Pattie thinks it’s the dryer. She’s about to jump out the window.”
“Who, Miss Pattie?”
“No. Evie.”
“Miss Sadie’s nursing home won’t get built a minute too soon. I’ll drop over to Evie’s after lunch. Do you know what the school principal called about?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you asked . . .”
“I can see I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Dooley Barlowe beat some boy black-and-blue.”
In his mind, he saw exactly how it would go. He would pick up the phone and do something that, if nothing else, would at least preserve his sanity.
“Hello, Walter? Please ask Katherine to move the Christmas ornaments off the guest room bed: I’m coming up. For how long? Oh, I don’t know, a month or two, maybe more! You and I can go fishing, like we’ve always talked about. Maybe I’ll turn loose some of that money you’re always claiming I have, and we’ll hop over to Sligo and look up our ancestors.
“Yes, that’s right. You heard right. No, Walter, do not call 911. I am of very sound mind.
“So, I’ll be there tonight around eleven. No, don’t bother, I’ll take a taxi. Yes, I know a taxi will cost a fortune, but you see, Walter, I don’t care! Walter? Walter! Did I hear something crash to the floor?”
He laughed. If he was half the man he liked to think he was, he would make that very call and get away for a while, just like Hoppy kept insisting he must do.
Well, and he would get away for a while. Later. Right now, he had to do something else. He had to have a talk with Dooley Barlowe about giving Buster Austin two black eyes, a swollen lip, a bloody nose and then, heaven help him, chasing Buster into the principal’s office with a baseball bat.
Apparently, Buster Austin had broken in line behind Dooley at the water fountain. While Dooley was bending over for a drink, Buster slammed him behind the knees, so that he sank to the floor, hitting his mouth on the fountain and cutting his lip.
He came up swinging.
“I saw it,” said Principal Myra Hayes, standing behind her desk with arms akimbo. “Buster provoked it, but there are rules, after all, and one does not build character by tearing down rules.
“Of course, what Dooley did at the water fountain was only half the story! He then grabbed a softball bat from Willie Bush and chased Buster down the hall into my office, saying that if he didn’t tell me whose fault it was right then, he’d meller his head.”
“Aha,” said Father Tim. Why did she have to frown so? It wasn’t the end of the world.
“He’ll be severely punished, and so will Buster. And if this sort of thing happens again, we’re prepared to take more drastic action. You understand.”
“Oh, I do.”
He felt she might be considering some special punishment for the offense of even knowing Dooley Barlowe.
At three-fifteen, he met Dooley at the corner and walked with him toward the church, where Russell Jacks was transplanting hydrangeas.
" ’at principal preached me a sermon t’day,” said Dooley.
“Good! That’ll save me the trouble.”
They walked awhile in silence. Leaves had drifted in deep banks of gold and crimson along the curbs and whispered under their feet. Ah, to be as young as Dooley Barlowe, with countless autumns ahead!
“You like Goosedown Owen, don’t you?”
“Better’n snuff,” he said, using one of Russell Jacks’s favorite expressions.
“You got over being thrown in the slop pretty quick.”
" ’at ain’t nothin’. She was jist playin’. I’m goin’ t’ ride th’ hair off ’at horse next time.”
“Let’s talk about next time.”
They crossed over Old Church Lane and went to the office.
“Got any homework?”
“Just some dumb ol’ book t’ read.”
“Your grandpa will be around for you in an hour.” He opened the windows and turned on the fan in his bookcase. The answering machine light was blinking, but that could wait. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, sitting on the corner of his desk. “All of us need a change of scenery now and again, and it occurred to me that some of the best scenery around is at Meadowgate Farm.”
The boy’s face brightened.
“Let me ask you something. How would you like to learn how it feels to have a horse of your own?”
Dooley was so astounded at this extraordinary thought, he was unable to speak. Instead, his eyes spoke for him.
“Let’s say that you and I make it a point to go out there once a month. And that you learn to groom Goosedown, and feed her, and take care of her tack, the whole works. However,” he said, as Dooley leaped off the bench, “there’s only one way we’ll be able to do this.”
“What’s ’at?”
“You can no longer let Buster Austin or anybody else tempt you to fight.” He let that sink in. “Do you understand?”
Dooley looked at the floor. “I reckon.”
“Tell me what you think I’m saying to you.”
“I can have me a horse, kind of, and take care of ’er an’ all, but I cain’t whip Buster Austin.”
“Nor anybody else.”
“N’r anybody else.”
“We’re going to talk in a little bit about what you can do if Buster . . . or anybody else . . . tries to get you to fight. In the meantime, are you willing to do what it takes to have yourself a horse once a month?”
“I’m willin’.”
“Can you do it?”
“I can do it!”