At Home in Mitford

by Jan Karon

  The congregation broke into spontaneous applause. The rector noticed that Cynthia Coppersmith was letting her tears fall without shame.

  George Gaynor came down the altar steps and walked into the aisle. “After I prayed that prayer with two people I had never seen, to a God I didn’t know, I came down, Father, and stole your Bible.”

  He looked plaintively at the rector, who smiled at him and nodded.

  “As I read during the next few weeks, I began to find the most amazing peace. Even more amazing was the intimacy I was finding with God— one-on-one, moment by moment.”

  The man from the attic moved to the first pew on the gospel side and leaned on the arm rest.

  “I come to you this morning, urging you to discover that intimacy, if you have not.

  “I also come to thank you for your hospitality, and to say to whoever made that orange cake— that was the finest cake I ever ate in my life.”

  Esther Bolick flushed beet red and put her prayer book in front of her face, as every head in the congregation turned to look where she sat in the third row from the organ.

  “Father,” said George Gaynor, “thank you for calling someone to take me in.”

  The rector looked at his senior warden. “Hal, go over to First Baptist and get Rodney Underwood.” Then he looked at his congregation.

  “Let us stand, and affirm our faith,” he said, “with the reading of the Nicene creed.”

  After the confession of sin, Father Tim saw Hal, Rodney, and two officers walk in and wait at the rear of the nave. The rector knew his senior warden would not come forward with the police until the signal was given. How grand to have a man like Hal Owen by his side, he thought. Harry Nelson would have had the entire force storming the aisles with cocked revolvers.

  During the final hymn, he went to George Gaynor, who was sitting in the front pew, and took his hand. Together, they walked down the aisle behind the crucifix, toward the rear of the church.

  Ron Malcolm, head of the nursing-home building committee, stepped out of the pew in his sock feet and handed George Gaynor his shoes.

  A look passed between the two men as George took the loafers. He put them on without a word. They appeared to fit perfectly.

  At the rear of the nave, the rector turned and proclaimed: “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord!”

  “Thanks be to God!” chorused his amazed congregation.

  While Father Tim, Hal Owen, and one of the officers drove George Gaynor to the Mitford jail, Rodney and another officer collected his things from the bell tower, including a Gatorade jug containing the jewels.

  J. C. Hogan, who heard the news from a breathless Lord’s Chapel member at Lew Boyd’s Esso, rushed to the church, but found it was already locked. He arrived at the jail as lunch was being served.

  “Is that him?” J.C. asked Joe Joe Guthrie. J.C. had one eye on the prisoner, who was sitting in a cell with Father Tim, and one eye on the rolling cart that contained Sunday lunch.

  “That’s him, all right.”

  “Fried chicken?” asked J.C.

  “Fried eggplant,” said Joe Joe.

  J.C. took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “I was goin’ to see if you had extras today, but I just got over it.”

  “Eggplant’s all right if you soak it,” said Joe Joe, who was leaning against the wall in a straight-back chair the department had bought at a library yard sale.

  “I hear this guy’s been hidin’ in the church attic over at Lord’s Chapel.”

  “Had a big job in economics. Turned hisself in during church service, preached ’em a good sermon.”

  “What’s th’ deal?” asked J.C. "I hear he stole some jewels worth th’ moon.”

  “Four or five million is what I hear,” said Joe Joe, taking a meal off the cart as it passed. He took the plate with both hands, held it under his nose and smelled it, then looked it over carefully. “Checkin’ t’ see if there’s any onions in this deal. I’m goin’ out tonight.”

  “Who with?” asked J.C.

  “That’s for me t’ know and you t’ find out, buddy.”

  Rodney came down the hall, adjusting his holster. "J.C., how can I he’p you?”

  “I’d like to talk to your prisoner, if it’s all right with you.”

  “Well, it ain’t all right with me, number one. Number two, this is a federal offense, and he’s not in my jurisdiction. Go talk t’ somebody who was at Lord’s Chapel this mornin’, that’s a whopper of a story right there.”

  “Maybe I’ll just wait for the father.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” said Rodney, without explanation. “If I was you, I’d talk to Ron Malcolm. He gave th’ prisoner th’ shoes off his own feet. That’s a human-interest angle.”

  “This town is full of human-interest angles. I’m lookin’ for hard news,” said J.C., who turned on his heel and left, slamming the door.

  “I’d like to give ’im some hard news,” said Joe Joe.

  He was sitting with the prisoner in a small cell that was spotlessly clean, containing a bed, a chair, a floor lamp, a sink, a toilet, a hooked rug, and a table with an orderly stack of Southern Living magazines.

  “I didn’t know you’d found the jewels in the urn. I kept moving them around, just in case. But the day you came up to the attic, I could sense trouble.

  “I’d been sitting in the loft, reading your Bible, when I heard you pull the stairs down. I was scrambling for my place behind the bell, and the wrapper dropped out of my pocket. When I got to the door of the tower, I turned and looked back, and there was the wrapper in the middle of the floor. It looked as big as a football.”

  “I like Almond Joy, myself,” the rector said, agreeably.

  “A lot of the time up there, I was starved for a decent meal. The box from 7-Eleven emptied fast, then I found the canned stuff in the basement. All those stewed tomatoes got to me after a while. Then, around Christmas, your coffee hour picked up for about a month. I remember coming down one Saturday night and sliding the top layer of pimento cheese sandwiches right off the platter, clean as a whistle.

  “For Thanksgiving, I ate a jar of pickles and a can of stewed okra. For dessert, I mixed a pint of half-and-half with Sweet’N Low. I came down from your attic with a new heart and a cast-iron stomach.”

  The rector laughed. “A priceless combination in today’s world.”

  “I have a great feeling for Lord’s Chapel. Strange as it seems, it was a true home to me, in many ways. Since I could hear what went on in the church and parish hall through the heating vents, I began to feel close to the people. It was like family.”

  “The Holy Spirit moved and worked through you in a wonderful way this morning. It was the finest sermon He’s delivered to Lord’s Chapel in a long time.”

  “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow and the next day and the next. For as long as you’re with us.”

  “I’d like to be baptized.”

  He embraced the man from the attic. “Consider it done,” he said.

  “Where you been at?” A glowering Dooley Barlowe was sitting on the study sofa, wrapped in a blanket.

  “At the jail.”

  " ’is ol’ phone’s rang off th’ hook. I like to th’owed it out th’ window.”

  “Help yourself.”

  “I ain’t had a bite t’ eat.”

  “Feed a cold, starve a fever is what I’ve been told.”

  " ’at’s easy f’r you t’ say.”

  He took off his jacket and sat on the sofa. Barnabas sprawled at his feet. “Who called?”

  "Y’r doc.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Said come up there when you can.”

  “Who else?”

  “Walter.”

  “And?”

  “Said call ’im up tonight after some ol’ TV show.”

  “60 Minutes. What else?”

  "Y’r neighbor. Cynthia.”

  “What did she say?”
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  “Call ’er up. Ol’ cat’s stuck in th’ basement.”

  Come here. Go there. Do this, do that.

  “What do you want to eat?”

  “Baloney.”

  "Baloney, yourself,” said Father Tim, getting up from the sofa.

  On Monday, he made breakfast, got Dooley off to school with a bag lunch and thirty-five cents for juice, and greeted Puny, who appeared to be all smiles. He gave her a quick recap of Sunday’s great drama, and, since he had seen nearly all of the hospital patients on the previous afternoon, he walked quickly toward the office with Barnabas on his red leash.

  At the Oxford Antique shop, Andrew Gregory was just opening up.

  “Andrew, my friend!” said the rector, with unmistakable joy. He proceeded to give the antique dealer a great slapping on the back and a vigorous, interminable handshake. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you! You will never, ever know how glad.”

  What a homecoming! thought a pleased Andrew, as the welcome fragrance of his shop greeted him at the door.

  He had seldom been happier to lock up the office.

  The phone hadn’t stopped ringing the livelong day. J.C. Hogan had dropped by twice, and the Associated Press had called after a parishioner had given the story to the editor of the Wesley Weekly. The Wesley TV station had prowled around the village all day, asked him to open the church for tape footage, and trained glaring lights on the Mortlake tapestry.

  Puny had called to say the sink had stopped up and Dooley was “ill as a hornet.”

  He had visited George at the jail, Olivia and Russell at the hospital, and feebly attempted to work on his sermon.

  For a change in their routine, he and Barnabas crossed the street and walked past Mitford Blossoms in the deepening gloom. As they approached the corner, the streetlights came on. Easily an hour early, he thought, looking at the overcast sky.

  Suddenly, Barnabas growled viciously and lunged at a car that had slowed down in the lane next to them. It was the only car on the street, and they were the only pedestrians.

  Before he could take it all in, someone opened the back door of the car and grabbed Barnabas by his collar, yanking the leash from his hand. “That’ll learn you to steal our dog, Preacher Man!”

  An arm shot through an open window and struck him in the chest. He reeled away as Barnabas was dragged into the backseat and muzzled.

  He grabbed for the door handle, but he was shoved again, so violently that he crashed against the lamppost and fell to the sidewalk.

  “VAT,” he read on the license plate, as the car roared away. He tried to rise, but the breath had been knocked from him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A Sure Reward

  The rector nodded to the police chief, who hitched up his holster belt and took a deep breath. “I present George Gaynor,” he said in a loud voice, “to receive the sacrament of baptism.”

  “Do you desire to be baptized?” the rector asked the freshly shaven prisoner.

  “I do.”

  “Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?”

  “I renounce them.”

  “Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”

  “I renounce them.”

  “Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?”

  “I renounce them.”

  “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept Him as your Savior?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you put your whole trust in His grace and love?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you promise to follow and obey Him as your Lord?”

  “I do.”

  Father Tim turned to the police chief, Joe Joe Guthrie, and two other officers. “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support this person in his life in Christ?”

  “We will!”

  After the thanksgiving over the water, George dropped to his knees on a braided rug.

  Father Tim cupped his left hand and filled it with water from a pitcher. “George Gaynor,” he said, spilling the water over the prisoner’s head, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  “Amen!” chorused the Mitford police force.

  Following the prayer, the rector came to the part of the service that, in all his years in the priesthood, had never failed to move him deeply.

  Placing one hand on the prisoner’s head and, with the other, marking his forehead with the sign of the cross, he said, “George Gaynor, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. Amen.”

  Marked! Forever. He felt the certainty of it.

  After baptism, the prisoner received the Eucharist. Then, he received Esther Bolick’s cake.

  “Looky here,” said Rodney. “Miz Bolick done brought you her knockdown, drag-out cake.”

  Joe Joe Guthrie stepped forward with a box from the Collar Button. “Me ’n the boys went in and got you a shirt and a pair of pants. Fifty percent off. We don’t want any thanks.”

  Another officer pulled a pair of socks from his pants pocket. “Here,” he said, shyly, “they’re not new, but my wife washed ’em, seein’ as you needed ’em.”

  George stood in the middle of floor, speechless, tears splashing down his cheeks.

  “This feller,” Rodney said to the rector, “is bad to bawl. He’s about had me doin’ it a time or two.”

  “The Holy Spirit tenderizes the heart.”

  “You know I don’t want to mess with the work of the Holy Spirit,” said Rodney, “but we ought to get this cake cut.”

  Before he left the jail, he placed a cross on a silver chain around the new communicant’s neck.

  “I’m sorry about your dog,” said George.

  My dog! He’d been able to forget this sorrow during the baptism service. He instantly felt the pain around his heart. “Pray for me,” he said simply.

  Rodney met him in the hallway. “We’re doin’ everything we can. You cain’t lose a black dog th’ size of a Buick like you could one of them little bitty Chihuahuas. He’ll turn up, and you can mark my word.”

  Barnabas missing! It was unthinkable. He still couldn’t believe it. It was a fact that simply would not take hold, except at night, when the foot of his bed felt empty as a tomb.

  In recent months, it seemed that a lot of important things had ended up missing. But there was one comfort he clung to: Everything that had ended up missing—jewels, Bible, Dooley—all had come back, all had been restored. It was this thought, and this alone, that kept him going.

  Joe Joe Guthrie ran ahead of him to open the door.

  “We’re real sorry to hear about your dog, Father.”

  “I appreciate that, Joe Joe.”

  “My grandmother thinks th’ world of you.”

  "And I think the world of the mayor. She’s the finest.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Joe Joe, grinning.

  J.C. Hogan caught up with him as he crossed the street at the Collar Button. “Find out anything?” J.C. asked. The editor’s briefcase came open suddenly, spilling papers onto the sidewalk.

  “The prisoner has been baptized,” he said, kneeling down to help pick up the jumble of papers.

  J.C. stuffed the papers back in the case and took out his handkerchief. “I cain’t go on that,” he said, wiping his face. “I got to have more.”

  The two men walked on. “The only more is that Esther Bolick brought him a marmalade cake, and the men on the force gave him a new shirt and pants.”

  “What else?” said J.C., keeping to the rector’s brisk pace.

  “Not another crumb or scrap that I can think of.”

  “I’d like to get out of th’ newspaper business,” snapped J.C.

  They walked on in silence. “What about your dog?” J.C. asked, with sudden enthusiasm. “You want me to run a picture?”

  “Excellent! Thank you
for thinking of it, my friend.”

  “Get a picture up to the office today and I’ll run it Monday.”

  He realized he didn’t have a picture. He hadn’t owned a camera in years.

  “I don’t have a picture. Could you describe him, instead? You know, you could create a wonderful description of Barnabas. You’re a fine writer when you put your mind to it.”

  “My mind is currently elsewhere,” J.C. said, huffily, as he left Father Tim and crossed the street.

  There, thought the rector, goes a man who’s standing in the need of prayer.

  “And what are you still doing here, young lady?” he asked Puny when he came home at five o’clock.

  “Fluffin’ up this place,” she said, grinning. “I never saw a place to need so much fluffin’ up.”

  “What exactly do you call fluffing?”

  “Air th’ pillows, wash th’ mattress covers, soak your seeds . . .”

  “Soak my seeds?”

  “If you want tomatoes th’ size of dinner plates, like you been sayin’, you have to soak th’ seeds an’ then plant ’em in indoor pots.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I hope you don’t think you just set them little seeds out in th’ ground to make it on their own.”

  “I never thought about it. I never raised tomatoes before.”

  “I’ve raised bushels!” she said happily.

  The rector opened the refrigerator. “What’s this?”

  “Cinnamon chicken salad, out of that diabetes book. I tasted it, and it’s delicious, has almonds in it and grapes.”

  “What would I do without you, I wonder?”

  She giggled. “I don’t wonder. I know!”

  He shut the door. “Do I detect something . . . different about you? Anything like . . . oh, maybe there’s been a parade by here recently?”

  “Ha!” she said, blushing.

  He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Well, well.”

  “Well, well, yourself!”

  “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what’s going on?” he asked casually, washing off a carrot at the sink.

  “Not meanin’ any disrespect,” she said, “but that’s for me t’ know and you t’ find out.”

  “What can I do?” asked Cynthia, who was standing on the other side of the screen door. “I know there must be something I can do.”