by Jan Karon
There was a long silence. Dooley appeared to have lost his breath; Father Tim thought the boy might faint.
“Excuse me.” Dooley stood and bolted from the library.
“You don’t look so good,” Father Tim said when Dooley returned. “What happened?”
“I puked.”
“Understandable.”
Dooley thumped into the wing chair, stupefied.
“What do you think?” asked Father Tim.
“I can’t think. There’s no way I can think. You aren’t kidding me, are you?”
“I wouldn’t kid about these numbers.”
“It makes me sad that I can’t thank her. I mean, why did she do it? I was just a scrawny little kid who cleaned out her attic and hauled her ashes. Why would she do it?”
“I can’t make it any simpler. She believed in you. »
“But why?”
“Maybe because the man she loved had been a boy like you—from the country, trying to make it on his own; smart, very smart, but without any resources whatsoever. It so happens that Willard Porter made it anyway, as you would, also. But she wanted you to have resources.”
Tears brimmed in Dooley’s eyes. “Man.”
“You want to go out in the yard and holler—or anything?”
“I feel ...” Dooley turned his gaze away.
“You feel?”
“Like I want to bust out cryin’.”
“You can do that,” he said. “I’ll cry with you.”
Cynthia knocked lightly and opened the door. “I can feel it.You know.”
Dooley stood. “Yeah.Yes, ma’am.”
“And the two of you are bawling about it?”
Father Tim nodded, wiping his eyes.
“You big dopes.” She went to Dooley and hugged him and drew his head down and kissed his cheek. “Remember me in my old age.”
Dooley cackled.
The air in the room released.
Father Tim put his handkerchief in his pocket.
A new era had begun.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A Living Fire
The preacher at Green Valley Baptist Church walked out to the road sign carrying a black box filled with metal letters. His dog, Malachi, trotted behind.
The preacher shaded his eyes and looked at the noon sky. After a dry June and July, the valley had experienced heavy September rains. Gulley washers! But since early October, they’d been steadily drying out again, and no indication of a drop to come.
To his mind, people were misguided to wait ’til a water shortage became a drought and showed up in the newspaper headlines. This Sunday, two days hence, he planned to insert a prayer for rain, even if some would count the petition premature.
He removed all the black sans serif letters from the sign and dropped them into their compartments in the metal box.
Though he’d planned to put up one thing, here he was fixing to put up another. Exercise daily, walk with the Lord was the message he’d had in mind. Then he’d gone and changed his mind, which he had every right to do, seeing as he’d prayed about it. This one would be more thoughtful, you might say, without a lick of humor in it. He’d get a fuss or two from somebody, but he always got a fuss or two from somebody.
He chuckled as he bent over the box, and selected an L.
“Malachi, are you still pretty good at spellin’?”
His dog did not reply.
“Writin’ that last book of the Ol’ Testament must have wore you out; you said all you had to say, looks like.”
He dipped into the box and brought forth an O.
“I been meanin’ to tell you that I especially noted what you set down in th’ third chapter. ‘Then they that feared th’ Lord spoke often to one another: and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrances was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.’ ”
He selected a V.
“I’d like to think my name might make it into His book of remembrances; how about you?”
In a while, he wiped his perspiring face and stood back to see what he’d accomplished.
LOVE IS A
Malachi rolled on his side and slept; crickets sang in the dry grass.
A half mile up the road from Green Valley Baptist, collard, mustard, and turnip greens thrived among pumpkins, onions, and winter squash in Sammy Barlowe’s garden. Working off water from the pond, a yellow sprinkler baptized its autumnal domain as an odor of rotted sheep manure rose in the vapor from mulched beds.
On Wilson’s Ridge, Lloyd Goodnight and Clarence Merton were drilling holes for screws under the eaves of the church roof, to hang a painted banner for Sunday morning. The growl of the drill echoed off the surrounding woods; Agnes heard it from the schoolhouse, where she was polishing the brass altar vases.
In the nave, Cynthia Kavanagh, Dooley Kavanagh, Sammy Barlowe, Sparkle Foster, Rooter Hicks, the McKinney sisters, Clarence Merton, Lloyd Goodnight, and their vicar were in the final hours of Holy Trinity’s first annual wax-off. The pulpit, the altar table, the altar railing, the four wooden folding chairs, and every pew were enduring a vigorous polish with beeswax.
“I hope nobody ever gets a notion to wax these floors,” said Miss Martha. “There ought to be a law against waxin’ a church floor.”
“There ought t’ be a law,” said Miss Mary.
“Bess Sawyer always sat in the back row at the Methodists, but one mornin’ after the floors were waxed, she shot right by me and ended up at the pulpit. We thought Mr. Greer had given an altar call.”
Clarence volunteered to unscrew the ceiling fixture, dump the bugs out, and hang it again; Rooter volunteered to hold the ladder while he did it. Everyone reckoned the bugs to be historic.
“I cain’t do nothin’ but set an’ talk,” said Granny, who had come for the social aspect of this affair. She had propped her foot, which still troubled her, on a kneeler.
Roy Dale and Gladys sat by her side, chewing bubblegum and watching the hive of activity. Granny gave them the once-over.
“You young ‘uns’re awful dirty.Y’ better git a bath ’fore you come in here on Sunday.”
“We warsh in th’ waterfall.”
“That’s a good place t’ do it. I’ve warshed in th’ waterfall, m‘self, a time or two. Are y’ usin’ soap, that’s th’ question?”
“We ain’t got none.”
“You ride with us when Mr. Goodnight takes me‘n’ Rooter home. I’ll give y’ a bar.”
No comment.
“Say thank ye.”
“Thank ye.”
“Y’r mighty welcome.”
“Hey, R-Rooter, what’s y’r h-hand s-sign f’r Sunday?”
“I cain’t show y’, hit’s a secret.” Rooter appeared proud to be asked, and prouder still that he wasn’t at liberty to reveal this information.
Father Tim set his wax container and rag on a pew and fiddled with the stove door. He opened it, then shut it; opened it, and shut it again. Cranky! he thought, as something so august was entitled to be. “They don’t make ’em like this anymore,” he said to whoever was in earshot.
A fellow from the valley had worked with Clarence for two days to reinstall the great iron behemoth, and Holy Trinity’s vicar had stepped up to the plate and personally oiled it down, black as pitch from stem to stern. Then he and the installer and Clarence and Agnes had a cup of tea and enjoyed the test fire they’d built in its bulging fire box.They’d even walked outside to watch the hickory smoke roll from the chimney like exhaust from a locomotive. Snatched by a fall wind, it vanished above the gorge.
“Drawin’ good,” said the installer.
Father Tim had inhaled deeply, intoxicated by a fragrance that resonated back to his early childhood. Indeed, the old stove would be their thurible.
Cynthia rode home in the red pickup with Dooley and Sammy, each scented with beeswax; the vicar hung a left on the road by the creek, in the direction of Lambert.
“Hey, Dad.
”
“Hey, son. What’s up?”
“We won’t be coming out for dinner. Lace and I are taking Sammy and the kids for pizza and a movie.”
“Too bad.You’ll miss our okra stew.”
“I’m really grievin’ over that. Glad you’re using your cell phone.”
“Feels good to catch up with the rest of the world.” He didn’t mention that he used it primarily to talk with Dooley, and maybe four times in as many months to phone Cynthia when he was batting around Mitford.
“You and Sammy be careful coming home, you know that stretch by ...”
“Right.”
“Have we found out whether Lace will be with us for Christmas?”
“Yes, sir.The Harpers definitely have to go to Dallas for three days; she’d like to stay with us, if that’s still OK.”
“That’s great. Better watch yourself in that red truck, I’ve seen a few police cars parked in the bushes on ...”
“Got it, Dad.”
“We love you, buddy.”
“Love you back.”
He stretched his legs, liking the warmth of the kitchen fire on what his father had called his sock feet.
Oh, the peace of a job well done—Holy Trinity was ready for the big event; they were polished to the nines. And, since he’d written his sermon on Wednesday, he’d gained the un-frayed liberty of Saturday.
“Now that your calendar’s done, Kavanagh, why don’t we find some trouble to get into tomorrow?”
“I haven’t been in trouble for ages; I’d love that!”
“What sort of trouble would you prefer?”
“Maybe ... something to do with antiques; I’d love a little table with a drawer to go by your chair at home. We could dash into Mitford, and see what Andrew has these days. Or, walking in the woods and listening to leaves crunch underfoot, and finding the waterfall Granny told us about.”
“I’ll arrange everything. Truck or car?”
“Truck.”
“Morning, afternoon, or full day?”
“Full day.”
“Lunch in a basket or in a restaurant?”
“In a basket.”
“Consider it done. The okra smells good.”
“It’s all yours, darling.”
His wife wouldn’t touch stewed okra. He felt it his sworn duty to eat all that Sammy had planted and Lily had frozen—which was enough to last through March, if he was persistent.
Cynthia opened the oven door and checked the roasting chicken; the scent of rosemary and lemon infused the air. “You left Hope’s letter for me to read, but if you’d read it aloud, that would be even better.”
He went to the table where he’d left the letter.
“By the way, Timothy, you’ve been the cat that ate the canary for days on end; there are feathers in your mouth.”
“Is that right?” He sat down and took the folded sheets from the blue envelope.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way I could finagle it out of you, this thing you have up your sleeve?”
He laughed. “You’re quite right not to suppose it. ‘Dear Father Tim and Cynthia...
“ ’When I asked the innkeeper for stationery, she told me that hardly anyone writes letters on their honeymoon.Yes, I said, but the people to whom I’m writing gave my husband and me the moon and the stars. That explains it, then, she said, and smiled.
“ ‘Scott and I will never be able to fully express our gratitude, but we vow we shall try until kingdom come.
“ ‘Our wedding was everything we wanted, and so very much more. The sweetness of Holy Trinity will remain always in our hearts, and the glory of the mountains, robed in their richest and most extraordinary colors, will never fade from memory.
“ ‘I’m told that brides sometimes have no recall of what happened during the ceremony! Yet I remember so vividly the way the church smelled, like moss and beeswax, apples and cedar. I can feel the carpet beneath my feet as I came down the aisle, and Scott’s hand on mine as we knelt together. And we remember your voice, Father, praying the simple prayer that seems to cover all of life’s goodness and grace:
“ ‘Bless, O Lord, this ring, that he who gives it and she who wears it may abide in Thy peace, and continue in Thy favor, unto their life’s end, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
“ ‘Afterward, we ate the cake you asked Esther to bake for us—it was the grandest cake imaginable! And I love that we bundled into our coats and went out to the wall with all those who are dear to us, to marvel at the first blush of sunset and drink champagne and laugh and weep and laugh again. Then away we dashed, perfectly astounded and happy that someone had actually tied tin cans on our bumper!
“ ‘Laura Ingalls Wilder said it is the sweet, simple things of life that are the real ones, after all.
“ ‘Our hearts are filled with gratitude for the sweet and simple treasure of your generosity and friendship. May you continue to abide in His peace and favor.
“ ‘Scott and Hope
“ ‘P.S. We belatedly wish you a happy anniversary. I just realized it was eight years ago last month when I watched you do the same, very extraordinary thing!
“ ‘P.P.S. Vermont is enthralling.’ ”
“A very happy letter!” said his wife.
“I’ve been meaning to ask—did you notice that Hope’s sister, Louise, shy as she is, seemed to get on with George Gaynor? And vice versa, I might add.”
“I did notice, actually.”
He grinned. “My goodness,” he said.
Nearly an hour before the service, he and Cynthia found people in the churchyard, bundled into their coats and jackets. Some were sitting on the wall; others strolled about, admiring the view.
He had smelled wood smoke when they got out of the truck; he glanced up to make certain the banner was in place.
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, est. 1899
Homecoming Day, October 28
Welcome one and all
It was nothing fancy, but if the curate wanted the trouble of an annual fete, this banner looked fit to outlast the Sphinx.
“Paul Taggart,” said a jovial fellow, stepping forward to shake hands.
“Timothy Kavanagh. You must be kin to Al Taggart who bush hogs for the McKinney sisters.”
“Same dog, diff’rent fleas. I’m from over at Lambert.”
“We’re glad to have you, Paul. My wife, Cynthia.”
“Glad to meet you. My granmaw an’ granpaw went to church here; I’d about forgot this old place. That’s some of my cousins over yonder, an’ my wife and kids.”
“We’ll just go in and get the preacher dolled up, and be right back,” said the vicar.
“I pray we’ll have enough food,” Cynthia whispered, “much less enough places to sit.”
The altar vases shone, the windows gleamed, the stove took the edge off the October chill.
Sprinting to the sacristy, they hailed Lloyd and Violet, who were about to set their food offerings on the table.
“I brought m’ baked beans,” said Lloyd. “You want me t’ start th’ coffee after communion?”
He gave Lloyd a thumbs up.
Cynthia helped him draw the white alb over his head. “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he said. “You look wonderful in that dress.”
“Thank you, Father. We aim to please.” She buttoned his collar, and put the stole around his neck.
“I’m wild about you, Kavanagh.”
She helped him pull on the green chasuble. “I’m wild about you back.”
Smiling, she tied his cincture, smoothed his tousled hair with her hands, and gave him an approving blast of her sapphire eyes.
His heart rate was up. Way up.
How lovely is thy dwelling place
O Lord of hosts, to me!
My thirsty soul desires and longs
Within thy courts to be;
My very heart and flesh cry out,
O living God,for thee ...
Leading the procession and wearing his new black robe with white cotta, Clarence Merton carried aloft the cross he’d carved from the wood of a fallen oak. Following him along the aisle were the choir—Violet O’Grady, Lloyd Goodnight, and Dooley Kavanagh—also wearing new robes.
Beside thine altars, gracious Lord,
The swallows find a nest;
How happy they who dwell with thee
And praise thee without rest...
Robed, sick as a cat with apprehension, and with his hair slicked down tight as a stocking cap, acolyte Rooter Hicks processed behind the choir.
They who go through the desert vale
Will find it filled with springs,
And they shall climb from height to height
Till Zion’s temple rings...