A Place in the Sun

by Michael Phillips

  “I remember the day very well. And now that you mention it, she was particularly quiet that afternoon.”

  “Nick said he had a feeling she was thinking about it. ‘You remember when she first came’ I asked him, ‘when she said her aunt used to go to church every Sunday and prayed and did all kinds of religious stuff, but then didn’t really live by it much the rest of the week?’ Then I told him that she was more than likely watching all the rest of us mighty close, and especially him, to see if our religion was something we lived by. ‘I don’t mean no offense to you, Nick,’ I said, ‘but you gotta make sure you live by what you believe.’

  “‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘I’m doing the best I can. But it ain’t easy, Drum, tryin’ to be helpful with her grumpy all the time and ignorin’ me.’

  “‘Calm down,’ I said, ‘I know what kind of man you are. I’m just saying you can’t go on with your business like maybe you done in the past. You gotta go out of your way to help her.’

  “I kept reminding him that she most likely had lots of things brewing down deep inside that had nothing to do with him, but with what she thought about God, and other memories out of her past like her aunt. I told him that all those things and attitudes were probably coming back at her now.

  “‘Why won’t she tell me about it then?’ he asked me.

  “‘Can’t tell you that, Nick,’ I said. ‘It’s not easy to talk about the past sometimes, especially for a woman like Katie who’s used to being independent and in control of things. She probably doesn’t want to admit to having any kind of trouble inside herself. That’s just the way some folks are.’”

  “Sounds to me like you gave him pretty good advice,” said Almeda.

  Pa shrugged, then continued his story. “‘Well what am I supposed to do?’ Nick asked me.

  “‘You just be as nice and as gentle to her as you can be,’ I said. ‘And keep remembering that she’s carrying your little son or daughter inside her.’

  “‘I’ll do it, Drum,’ he said.

  “‘Then you pray for her, Nick,’ I told him. ‘You pray for her real hard, and you pray for her all the time.’

  “‘What am I supposed to pray? I ain’t no praying sort like you and Almeda.’

  “‘Well then it’s high time you became a praying man,’ I told him. ‘You look here, Nick—that wife of yours needs you now more than she’s ever needed anyone in her life. And she needs more than just you being nice—even though she needs that too. She’s got something going on down inside her, and she needs God to be her friend. And that probably isn’t going to happen without lots of prayer, because Katie’s mighty headstrong when it comes to God. And you being her husband, your prayers mean more than anybody else’s because you know what her needs are. We’ll all be praying too, but you being the man of that house, and Katie being your wife, you’re the one who can take charge of the situation with your prayers. So you gotta do it, you hear me? You gotta pray for her.’

  “Well, he shrugged and didn’t say much for a long time. He wasn’t used to thinking of himself like that. He’s like most folks with that fool notion that praying’s something you hire the preacher to do, and that living like a Christian’s something you do on Sunday and forget the rest of the time. But I told him he’s got to get to the business of being God’s man in that family of his if he wants to pull his wife through this.

  “‘But I don’t know how to pray, Drum,’ he said again.

  “‘You can’t have forgotten all your ma and pa taught you,’ I said. ‘Even I knew them well enough to know they taught you and Aggie better than that. You know how to pray well enough. You just got out of practice because you haven’t done it all these years. And now it’s time you got at it again!’

  “‘But what do I say?’

  “‘There’s nothing special you have to say. Just talk to God, that’s all.’

  “‘Out loud?’

  “‘God doesn’t care if it’s out loud or not, Nick. Just talk to him, like he was right there in the room with you. You don’t have to say a lot of words to get his attention. He’s there. He’s waiting for you to make him part of what you’re about. He’s not like us, Nick, who can only talk to a few folks at a time. He can be with all his children at once. So just tell him what you’re thinking and feeling. And pray for Katie. Pray that he would open up Katie’s heart.’

  “He was quiet again. He was thinking pretty hard on what I was saying. I think it was like lots of things coming back to him from when he was just a kid, things he hadn’t stopped to think about for a long time.

  “‘But I don’t know what’s supposed to happen, Drum.’ he said.

  “‘Well, if you’re praying for God to open up Katie’s heart, then that’s what’s gonna happen,’ I told him. ‘That’s the way it works. That’s the kind of prayer God wants real bad to answer.’”

  Pa looked around at the rest of us with a smile. “‘Look at me,’ I said. ‘That wife of mine—before she was even my wife, I don’t doubt—and my daughter, and maybe even my son, for all I know—they were all praying for me. And lo and behold if some places down inside me didn’t eventually open up and I begin to remember things and think about how I ought to be living and how I ought to be listening to God more. And pretty soon, Drum Hollister’s praying out loud and trying to live his life as a Christian, and even some of his old friends are calling him Reverend.’

  “‘So you see, Nick,’ I said, ‘that’s just the way it works. If you pray for somebody, one way or another there’s gonna be a change in their life. You remember what kind of man I used to be! It ain’t gonna be all that tough for God to get through to a woman like Katie, just so long as you keep praying.’

  “‘She can be a mighty headstrong woman,’ said Nick. When he said it he sighed, and I could tell he wasn’t being critical. It was just that frustration coming out again.

  “‘Well, maybe that’s so. But we’ll all be praying with you, Nick,’ I told him. ‘And some time or another, something down inside her is going to tell her she’s not as in control of life as she’s always figured. That time comes sooner or later to everyone. For me it was Aggie’s dying and the kids showing up. All of a sudden, my whole world changed and a little door somewhere inside me opened a crack. And that’s when God started poking his head through, and for the first time in my life, I was ready to listen.

  “‘Well, that time will come for Katie too. So when I say you have to wait, that’s what you’re waiting for—that time when the little door inside of her heart opens up a crack and she looks out and says, “Maybe I do need to know God more than I’ve always thought.” Then you can pray with her.’

  “‘I’m not sure how,’ Nick said.

  “‘You’re the man,’ I told him. ‘You gotta take the lead and show her that you can pray. Just ask for God to be in both of you and to show himself to you, and pray that you’ll be open to let him do what he wants to do in your hearts. And then if she’s willing,’ I said, ‘then you encourage her to pray that same thing, that God would show himself to her and that he’d live in her heart and help her to understand things better and be a friend to him like she hadn’t been up until then. If she’d pray that, I think you’d have yourself a new woman, Nick—one with a smile on her face.’

  “He was real quiet again. This was all pretty new to him. I’m not sure he even liked it much. But I could tell he knew it was true, and knew what he had to do.”

  The cabin got real quiet. From the look in Almeda’s eyes I could tell she was far away. But this time it wasn’t the look of pain that came from memories of Boston. It was a contented, peaceful look. I knew she was reflecting on the changes that had come to us all, to her, and especially to Pa. Even though no one said anything right then, we all felt so complete—a genuine family, talking and praying together about the deep and important things in life.

  The late-night silence was broken by footsteps as Emily walked out from her room.

  “I’m sorry, Pa,” she
said. “I wasn’t asleep, and I couldn’t help listening. I was concerned about Katie.”

  “Come over here, girl,” said Pa. Emily walked over to him, and he stretched out his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. “I’m glad you came out to join us. We’re gonna pray for Katie, and I want you to pray with us.”

  “Thank you, Pa,” she said, then sat down on the floor at his feet. Pa kept one of his great strong hands resting on her shoulder.

  “After Nick and I were done talking,” Pa went on in a moment, “I asked him if he wanted to pray right then with me. I think it took him by surprise, the thought of two grown men praying together like that. But he just nodded. Then he waited to see what I was gonna do. So I bowed my head and reached across and put my hand on his arm, and then I closed my eyes and started praying for him and Katie. Afterward he told me he was surprised to hear me pray in just normal words, without trying to use a bunch of church-words like the Reverend does on Sundays. But I told him, ‘Nick, the Lord’s not much concerned with a batch of big words that sound like they come out of the Bible. He only wants us to talk to him, that’s all, like the people we really are, not like someone we’re pretending to be. That’s what I told him afterwards. But right then I just closed my eyes and prayed for him and Katie, and especially that Katie would come to see that God wasn’t her enemy and that he wanted to be her friend. Then I prayed that Nick would find the courage to pray for her and to be the man he was supposed to be. He hardly moved a muscle, and when I finished it was quiet a long time.

  “I kept waiting with my eyes closed, ’cause I wanted him to pray, so he could see it wasn’t such a fearsome thing after all. It seemed to take him forever to get up the gumption, but finally he said, ‘God, I ain’t much practiced in this kind of thing. But if you’d give me a hand now and then, I’ll try to pray more. So I ask you to help me do what Drum says and pray for Katie. Help me to know what to say to her. And I ask you to make her be able to listen when people talk about you without getting her dander up. Help me to know what to say and do. And help me to be able to listen to you too.’

  “Anyhow, that’s something like what he prayed,” Pa added.

  “Good for him,” said Almeda softly. “What a wonderful beginning! I know many doors will begin to open for the two of them very soon.”

  “And now let’s us pray for them both,” said Pa. “Five of us praying, especially five of us who love Nick and Katie—why, that’s a powerful lot of prayer for God to be able to use!”

  He took his hand off Emily’s shoulder and placed it around her little white hand. Then he reached out with his other and took hold of Zack’s. Almeda and I joined hands to complete the circle. We all bowed our heads and one at a time prayed for Uncle Nick and Aunt Katie.

  Chapter 42

  Spring Picnic

  One of the next decisions Pa made as mayor was to announce that there was going to be another town picnic on the first day of spring that year. He told us that he’d been thinking about the gathering we’d had three-and-a-half years earlier at the church’s dedication, and thinking it had been too long since we’d done something like that as a community together. So he figured that if he was mayor, he ought to be able to do something about it.

  He announced it in church one Sunday early in March.

  “On the twenty-first of March,” he said, “that’s on the Saturday two weeks from today, we’re gonna bring in spring with a picnic right out here in the meadow between the church and the town. I want you all to come, and we’ll celebrate the day together. That’s on orders from your mayor!”

  Everyone chuckled, and Pa moved to sit down. For the next two weeks, the whole town looked forward to the chance to get together again. Most of the women—and there were a lot more of them now than there had been in 1853!—spent the time cooking and baking. It was almost like getting ready for a fair!

  When the day came, it couldn’t have been prettier. There had been rain through the week, and Pa was wondering what to do if it rained on Saturday. But the storm passed on into the mountains and the sun came out Friday afternoon. It was a bit chilly on Saturday, and still a little wet, but so fresh and clean!

  As I walked into the meadow that afternoon, there was still moisture and dew all about in the shady places, and where the sun shone the grass sparkled. It looked as if the whole area was covered with thousands of tiny glass prisms, all reflecting the sunlight like diamonds.

  We were the first to arrive, and as I walked through the meadow, in the distance by the edge of the woods I saw a deer calmly nibbling on the fresh wet grass. She lifted her head and looked around, her tan coat gleaming when the sun hit it as she moved through the shadows. With each movement her velvet-like body shone with the essence of freedom I had always dreamed about.

  I looked up and breathed the crisp air with pleasure. The sky was blue with clouds billowing gently across the sky. A whisper of cool wind blew by me, and I smelled again the fragrance of clean, fresh, springtime air.

  Gradually more people began to arrive. The women were dressed brightly in colorful spring apparel, the men wearing dark trousers and flannel shirts. A few of the women were carrying parasols and twirling them around—some red, some pink. As the people slowly came and the meadow filled, all the colors and sounds and sights reflected the joy that was felt by everyone.

  The men got tables set up and then we arranged food as it arrived and got everything ready. As the crowd enlarged, most of the younger kids went running off, some playing tag and other games.

  “What can I do?” asked Becky, as Almeda was preparing one table.

  “Hmm . . . let’s see,” replied Almeda, “why don’t you go see if you can pick me some nice wildflowers to use here on the table.”

  Becky was off in a second, glad to be of some help. “But don’t get near those woods again!” yelled Emily after her. Almeda and I both laughed.

  After a while we were ready to begin eating. As the men were gathering around the table and the women were spreading out the last of the food, Rev. Rutledge asked if he could say a few words before we began.

  “Ye mean we’s gonna have t’ listen to another one o’ yer sermons?” said Alkali Jones, loud enough that everybody could hear.

  A great laugh went up from those nearby.

  “I will try to make this one as short as possible,” said Rev. Rutledge, laughing himself and joining in the fun.

  “You know preachers, Alkali,” said Pa. “Whenever they see a crowd of people, they immediately start thinking of something to say!”

  “And if they don’t think of something right off, then they pass the collection plate!” added Rev. Rutledge. His joke got another good laugh out of everybody.

  “When I was a child,” the minister began as the laughter died away, “my parents always had a celebration like this to start off the season of spring. Most of our friends remembered the coming of spring on Easter, and in the church we went to, Easter was always a busy day. But my parents wanted to preserve Easter as a day spent thinking only of the resurrection and the true meaning of the day. Thus our family celebrated the first day of spring separately, as we are doing now.”

  The minister paused a moment to look around at the townspeople gathered in the meadow.

  “Spring is the season of new life,” he went on, “when new things begin to grow and new life bursts forth out of the earth. During springtime we witness the cycles of life and nature emerging in their newness, and all about us we see God’s creation alive in the earth. But spring is also the time of year when Jesus Christ rose from the grave. And so the resurrection is the true basis for what spring means. We can let ourselves be reminded of the life that Jesus gave us when we see the new life that nature gives us during this wonderful green, growing, fragrant time of the year.

  “So I would like to give a special thank you to our mayor, Drummond Hollister, for arranging this picnic today. As you can see, it is especially meaningful for me. And I would like to thank you all fo
r being here.”

  Then Rev. Rutledge prayed, and immediately everyone began to eat. I don’t know if I’d ever seen so much food before. There was every kind of meat and salad and fruit and bread imaginable. Afterward, people gradually began getting up and going about, visiting, the children playing, men smoking their pipes or chatting and playing horseshoes or discussing their claims and the latest gold prices, while the women worked on clearing up the tables and leftover food.

  When no one else was around him for a minute, Mr. Royce walked up to Pa.

  “Hollister,” the banker said, “I think the time has come for me to acknowledge what you did for me at the town council meeting.”

  “I meant what I said,” replied Pa.

  “Nevertheless, I want you to know that I’m extremely appreciative.”

  “It was for the good of the town.”

  “And for me,” said Mr. Royce. “Your vote more than likely saved my bank, and my whole future. And I want to say thank you.”

  He extended his hand. Pa took it and gave it a firm shake. Then the eyes of the two men met. Pa still held on to Mr. Royce’s hand.

  “I meant what I said about loyalty, Royce,” said Pa. “And about being a friend and neighbor to you.”

  “I know you meant it, Hollister. You’ve proved yourself a man of your word. I didn’t think I could admit this several months ago, but I have to say now that the best man won last November. Miracle Springs is better off with you as its mayor than it would have been with me.”

  “Well, I’m just glad you’re on the council,” said Pa, “and that we can start working together on the same side from now on.” He relaxed his grip and let the banker’s hand go.

  “Well, thank you again, Hollister. And as for the question on interest rates, I’m looking into all that. I want to be fair to the people. If you’ll just give me some time to get the details worked out—”