by Jan Karon
“God is giving us the best tonight, and we’re taking it. Thanks be to God.”
Dooley looked at him intently for a moment, then at Lace. “Yes, sir,” he said, quietly.
When he opened the kitchen door to let the dogs out, he found the air warm, nearly balmy.
“Spring,” sighed his wife. “I can’t remember when I’ve yearned for it so.”
“Lady Spring is lingering just over the mountain in her gown of moss and buttercups, and is definitely headed this way.”
She laughed. “Thank you, Hessie Mayhew!”
“In the meantime, our small fire is a benediction.” He sat in his chair and reached across the lamp table and took her hand.
“That was a great dinner, my love. Thank you.”
“I didn’t want to say anything at dinner, but the fries need work.”
“Beating a dead horse, Kavanagh. The fries are nailed.”
“We’ll see,” she said.
Though he was more than a dash on the weary side, he felt his heart lift up. “Dooley’s ready to become a Kavanagh. I asked if he wanted the name only, or wanted us to adopt—I thought that should be clearly spoken between us.”
“He wants us to adopt, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. I told him to consider it done.”
“This is a good thing. I’m so glad.”
“I’ll call Walter and see where we go from here.”
“Tell them to come visit, they’d love a week in the country.”
“Will do.”
“Dooley is dear to my heart; I find him very brave.”
“Brave in what way?”
“Going off to that fancy Virginia prep school, barely out of overalls, and making a way for himself, and now he’s an earnest college student with plans for the future. Think of how it might have gone.”
“I often think of it.”
“He gave me the biggest hug when they left; he’s hardly ever done that without prompting. And he said yes, ma’am!”
They sat looking at the fire, amazed and satisfied.
“By the way,” he said, “now that the fries are coming along, I suppose you’re on to reading War and Peace?”
“Oh, phoo. I should never have set such an impetuous goal. I need to do it. I should do it. And over and again, I’ve tried to do it. But Timothy . . .”
“Yes?”
“I can’t do it.”
“Give it up,” he said. “Life’s too short.”
She leaned her head against the wing of her chair and looked at him with a certain tenderness. “Thank you, sweetheart, I needed that. Why don’t you read to us? A psalm would be the finest of nightcaps.”
“I’ll have to find my glasses,” he said, springing up. How good to have a mate to whom a psalm was the finest of nightcaps!
“The kids were wonderful to help clean up,” she said. “Lace is a joy.”
“And to think she received almost all her education from a bookmobile. I never fail to find that wondrous. Mind-boggling!”
“We’re being very good, don’t you think, by not plotting their future together? We did that for a while, and it isn’t fair to them—or to us, for that matter.”
“I agree,” he said. “We’ll continue to keep our hands off and pray the prayer that never fails.”
Cynthia curled deeper into the chair and yawned hugely. “Oh, please, it is so past my bedtime, and I must get up early and work on February.”
He ran his hand along the top of the refrigerator. Not there. “You’re done with January so soon?”
“A breeze. It scares me. I can’t imagine the drawing is any good at all if it took only three days. That has never, ever happened to me before.”
“I don’t suppose your lowly husband could have a look.” Ah! Perched on his head, for heaven’s sake.
“If you really want to.”
“Of course I want to. Very much.” His wife had always been oddly unforthcoming about her work. “Let’s have a look in the morning when the light is good.” He sat down and opened his worn King James to the psalms.
“Which service are we attending tomorrow?” she asked. “Nine o’clock or eleven?”
“Let’s not go to St. Paul’s.” He was surprised by the thought of quite another prospect. “Let’s go up to Holy Trinity.”
“Yes! I love that idea!”
“I’ll take the communion kit,” he said.
“And I’ll pack a picnic lunch.”
“Stick in one of those small loaves you baked last week.”
“Perfect!”
He wouldn’t mention it to his enthusiastic consort, but he would also take his purple Lenten vestments—it would be a dress rehearsal, in a manner of speaking.
As he tucked his Book of Common Prayer into the picnic basket the following morning, he was mildly astonished at his excitement. Indeed, he felt as if he were somehow going home.
CHAPTER FIVE
Loaves and Fishes
As on the previous evening, temperatures were unseasonably warm, a sign that the callow and unknowing might consider a promise of early spring.
However, no one living in the vicinity of Meadowgate and its highland neighbors to the west would be so easily duped. Hadn’t the worst blizzard of the last century come in late March, and some of their deepest snows in May? And hadn’t they been betrayed since time immemorial by countless false springs that wrecked their hopes with a killing frost?
Nonetheless, the common blue violet was everywhere pushing through damp leaf mold, while its near cousin, viola rafinesquii, sprinkled its bloom among the new grass of upland pastures. Also coming along smartly, if one looked with interest, was the pink and blue henbit, so named for being a sworn favorite of chickens during the Scottish-Irish settlement of the highlands.
“I can feel it,” said Cynthia, as they drove through the overarching canopy of trees.
He shifted the truck into third gear for the two-mile flat stretch. “What can you feel?”
“The whole aliveness of everything, the sense that something is going on.” She shivered with pleasure.
Something was going on, indeed; he felt it, too.
When they arrived at a quarter ’til ten, they found a pickup truck eaten to the chassis by rust and a 1982 Dodge sedan in the park-ing lot.
He also found the church doors open wide—and, to his amazement, several people sitting here and there among the pews. As Cynthia stayed behind to spread a cloth on the stone wall, he stood awkwardly in the doorway, holding his vestment bag aloft.
He realized his mouth was agape, and shut it promptly. He experienced a moment of panic, as if he’d known to be prepared and had somehow forgotten. Every head turned.
“Father Kavanagh!”
Agnes stood up from the front pew and, leaning on her cane, met him in the aisle. “They all heard the bell yesterday, and thought it might be announcing a ten o’clock service, as in the old days. Clarence and I walked over for our own service this morning, and... here we all are!”
Agnes was flushed with surprise.
“Yes! Well! My goodness!” He looked toward his astonished wife, who had appeared in the doorway. “I’m Father Timothy Kavanagh, and this is my wife, Cynthia, and...”
He took a deep breath. “... and you were absolutely right, there is a service today at Holy Trinity, and what a glorious morning for it! Have you seen the mist rising from the hollows? The way the trees are budding out? And thank you for coming, may God bless you for coming!”
He was babbling like a brook, his vestment bag still held aloft so his alb and chasuble wouldn’t drag the floor.
“Morning Prayer or Holy Communion?” Agnes asked.
“Ah.” His head was swimming. “Communion! We have bread and wine, not much wine, but enough to go around.”
Cynthia hurried down the aisle with the picnic basket, stuck it on the seat of a pew, and relieved him of the vestment bag. “I’ll help you vest.”
“Will Mrs. Kavanagh be chalice bea
rer?”
“Oh, no, I’m only certified to sit in a pew!”
“Agnes,” he said, “will you?”
She hesitated briefly. “I will.”
“Granny!” cried a young voice. “I got t’pee!”
An elderly woman and boy jostled by them, hurried up the aisle, and made a hasty exit to the laurel grove.
“Candles?” he asked Agnes.
“On the altar.”
“Is the sacristy unlocked?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“I don’t suppose we have a crucifer?”
“Clarence is here. He knows what to do.”
“Good! Ask him to bring the cross and meet me outside. I’ll vest under the maple. Could someone pull the bell? Bread and wine are in the basket, with a chalice.”
He snatched his prayer book from the basket, thrust it at Agnes, and dashed up the aisle and out the front door with Cynthia, his vestment bag flapping in the breeze.
Thank goodness he’d declined to bring Barnabas. His good dog would be sprinting along at the head of this wild processional, barking like a maniac, and wouldn’t that be a sight for sore eyes?
Clarence was a large man, perhaps in his early forties, with a reddish beard, a balding head, and a shy smile. He wore overalls with a plaid shirt and faded suit jacket, and held in both hands a cross roughly made of wood, still bearing its husk of bark.
“Clarence, God bless you! You lead and I’ll follow.”
He might have been a young curate, for all the pounding of his heart. He prayed fervently and glanced at his watch.
Ten o’clock sharp.
The bell tolled four times, ringing out into the great amphitheater of coves and hollows.
As Clarence lifted the cross, the grandmother and boy scurried from the path and fell in behind the crucifer. Then, up the steps they went, their new vicar bringing up the rear.
In the few minutes it had taken him to robe, Agnes had lighted the candles, spread the altar with a simple fair linen, and opened the 1928 prayer book to the Order for Holy Communion.
He had a moment of something like cold fear at the absence of his familiar 1979 version. But as the older version was all they had for the four, five, six—he counted hastily—seven congregants, there was no looking back.
He was convinced he would croak like a frog when he opened his mouth; stress had always done an odd job on his voice.
Then he saw his wife beaming at him from the front pew—She Who Loved Surprises should have enough to last her for a month of Sundays—and he miraculously relaxed, as if something in him were melting.
He felt suddenly like a balloon that had been cut free to rise and float, unfettered, above all that had ever plagued or constrained him.
He helped Agnes kneel by the altar on the bare pine floor.
“The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee,Agnes, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.”
The old and familiar words came flowing back, easy and full of grace.
“Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.”
At the conclusion of the service, he found himself distinctly moved by the bowed heads before him, and the view that swept his gaze full hundreds of miles to the west.
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you, and remain with you always.”
“Amen!”
“Brothers and sisters,” he said, as the congregants rose to leave, “please join Cynthia and me for a simple meal on the stone wall.” The idea had come to him quite out of the blue.
“It’s a picnic made for two, but God intended it for eight, which reminds me of the old table grace, ‘Heavenly Father, bless us and keep us all alive; there’s ten of us for dinner and not enough for five!’
“He has given us loaves and fishes this morning, that we might celebrate the beginning of our journey as a congregation, and offer thanks for a marvelous new chapter in the life of Holy Trinity.
“Now, let us go forth to do the work that He has given us to do.”
Three voices responded. “Thanks be to God!”
As he moved along the aisle in his purple Lenten vestments, he sensed in his soul the definite quickening of Easter.
“We started bringing things over yesterday evening,” Agnes said. “Twelve prayer books, the fair linen, and the old alms basin, and look how we had need of them all! Mr. Cowper made it perfectly clear that God works in mysterious ways.”
“So clear that many think his line of verse to be Holy Writ! Tell me, is it uncomfortable for you to kneel—I mean, with the cane, I thought ...”
“It is uncomfortable, but I shall kneel as long as I’m able—and as long as you’ll help me up again!”
He mingled with Agnes and the visitors as Cynthia unpacked the basket at the stone wall. “And where has Clarence got to? He was a dab hand at the candles, not to mention carrying the cross and passing the basin ...”
“He’s gone back to the house for a bit. He’s extremely shy; this is the most activity we’ve had at Holy Trinity in a very long time.”
Cynthia set out two thick sandwiches of sliced roast chicken on whole wheat, and cut them into eight pieces. Then she withdrew from the basket a jar of Lew Boyd’s bread-and-butter pickles and a chunk of white cheddar...
Walking with her cane, Agnes approached the wall. “Is there something I might do to help, Mrs. Kavanagh?”
“Will you please call me Cynthia?”
“Cynthia. That was my paternal grandmother’s name. And you’ll call me Agnes.”
“Agnes, what would we have done without you and Clarence?”
“You would have done perfectly well! May I introduce you to Granny Meaders and her grandson, Rooter?”
“Hey,” said Rooter, “can I have that ’un?”
“That one what?” asked Cynthia.
“That piece of sam’wich you jis’ cut.”
“That would be the biggest one.”
“Yeah. That ’un.”
“Well, I suppose since you’re the youngest, and still growing, you need it most.”
“An’ I’ll have me some of them cookies, too.”
“There’s no sugar in these cookies.”
“Pfaw I ain’t eatin’ ’em, then.”
“Granny,” Cynthia held out her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Hit’s nice t’meet you’ns. We was baptized at th’church what burnt down Christmas Eve. Hit was th’ wars.”
“The wars?”
“The wires,”said Agnes. “They were old. They say the church will be rebuilt, but farther down, in the valley.”
“Shall I call you Granny?” asked Cynthia.
“Ever’body does, honey.”
“Please take a napkin and I’ll pile on what we have. Would you like a pickle?”
“Are they sweet? My stomach cain’t hardly tolerate sour.”
“Yes, ma’am, they’re sweet. And here’s a cookie, and a slice of apple and a bit of cheese ...”
“I cain’t hardly chew nothin’.”
“She can gum it t’ death!” said Rooter, proud of such a skill.
“... and of course, we have a lovely thermos of raspberry tea, but only two drinking cups. Rats in a poke!”
“What’s ’t you jis’said?”
“I said, ‘rats in a poke.’”
“Is that cussin’?”
“Well, sort of, I suppose.”
“’At ain’t what I say when I cuss.”
“Yes, but you could say ‘rats in a poke’ and get lots more attention than those words you’re alluding to. I mean, no one pays any attention to that old stuff anymore.”
“I got it licked about y’r tea. You’n th’ preacher could drink out one of them cups, me’n Granny could drink out th’ other’n.�
��
“What about everyone else?”
“Ol’ Robert he could drink after me’n Granny, an’ Mr. Goodnight, he could drink out of th’ lid of that bottle y’ got there.”
“Rooter,” said Agnes, “run along that path to the little house—not the big one, the little one, and ask Clarence for eight paper cups. If he’s not there, look over the sink at the back door. Eight! Run!”
Rooter ran.
His grandmother grinned, revealing pink gums. “Hit’s good y’ didn’t need n’more, he cain’t hardly count past ten.”
“Thank goodness I put these in!” Cynthia withdrew yet another comestible from the basket. “I packed for a celebration, and I was right!” She peeled away the foil and displayed two small apple fritters. “They’ll slice perfectly into eight small bites.”
“Lloyd Goodnight, this is Mrs. Kavanagh.”
“We welcome you, ma’am.” Lloyd Goodnight extended his large, rough hand.
“Lloyd came to this church as an infant.”
“I was baptized in Wilson’s Creek down yonder. An’ I was twelve year old when they closed th’ church. They wadn’t nobody around to come n‘more, ’cept my mama and daddy, an’ then we moved offa th’ mountain. I come back home to th’ ridge last year.”
Lloyd Goodnight looked pleased about his homecoming.
Cynthia served the pie onto napkins. “Did you enjoy the service this morning?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am, I did. It was me that pulled th’ bell.” Lloyd drew himself up, beaming.
“And well done, I must say!”
“I could’ve went on pullin’, but seem like we was all ready to get goin’.”
Cynthia laughed.
“I’ve missed our old church. I carried th’ cross when I was a boy, an’ done a lot of what Clarence done today. I can still hear th’ priest say, ‘Let us pray f‘r th’ whole state of Christ’s church.’ I thought that was a mighty big thing, to pray f’r th’ whole state of th’ church across all th” whole wide world.”
“Yes,” said Cynthia. “It is a mighty big thing. And we still need it in a mighty big way.”
“We have Robert Prichard over there,” said Agnes. “Robert, will you come and greet Mrs. Kavanagh?”