“I remember. Before he’d get started, Pastor McBrayer would always tell him to make it short.”
“Little good it did, but I tell you, we all loved to hear John Williams pray! We’d all get down on our knees, remember? First one, then another would pray, but sometimes John would pray twice. Nowadays nobody gets down on their knees. Wonder how they’ll do on that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess? Ha! Ha!”
“Don’t the Catholics and Episcopalians kneel?”
“Well, you got me there.” I got the cord untangled, but it didn’t stay that way long. “Now, Beatrice, you know I have got to cut this short, but do you remember that little motto tacked up on the wall: MUCH PRAYER, MUCH POWER; LITTLE PRAYER, LITTLE POWER; NO PRAYER, NO POWER? Well, it has come to that. No prayer to speak of and no power, just Wednesday night suppers and activities.”
“It’s a sin and a shame, ain’t it?”
“Yes, it is, but we mustn’t give up. Oh, by the way, I got most of the garden planted, and to tell the truth, at day’s end all I want to do is sit on the porch and rest. I used my savings to buy me a nice glider at a yard sale, and Elmer brought it up to the house. He didn’t want to take pay, so I told him to go down in the basement and take whatever jars of the canned stuff he wanted. I got jars dating back three or four years. He was tickled to death.”
Throughout this conversation, I was debating back and forth whether or not to tell Beatrice what I had learned about Percy. Finally I figured I had put it off as long as I could. It wouldn’t be right not to tell her, but breaking the news wouldn’t be easy. I hoped the Lord would help me say it.
I tried to sound sympathetic. “Beatrice, your letter made me think about you and Percy. I guess I didn’t really know how you felt about him.” I paused, wondering if I should apologize in case I had hurt her feelings. I didn’t know what to do, seeing as I was about to drop a bombshell on her and all. So I just took a deep breath and dived in. “Beatrice,” I said, “I hope you won’t mind that I took it upon myself to find out what’s happened to Percy . . .”
I figured the poor girl might just climb through the telephone when she heard that! I continued all in a rush. “Elmer said he heard Percy first married a Veetnamese and after that a Yankee and after that another woman.”
I thought I heard her suck in her breath. But I didn’t hear nothing else. She was so quiet, I went on talking about other things for a while so as not to leave her so upset.
“Now that the weather’s nice, the homeless are camping in the grove again. Of course, most of them have got homes, they just don’t want to live by the rules in that home. Well, I’ll tell you, I think they hide out in the grove because they’re afraid they might see a sign that says ‘Now Hiring.’ Boris takes food down there every Saturday morning—whatever’s left over from the men’s fellowship breakfast at church.”
When I paused, I thought I heard her murmur, “That’s nice,” probably hoping I wouldn’t detect she was crying.
I kept on talking. “By the way, Boris has won over Clara. He asked her granddaughter to play the violin in morning service, and that was all it took. Clara has dropped her Cold Water Baptist investigation. . . . Did I tell you Boris started a bell choir? Them bells play the mischief with hearing aids.”
Well, finally, I just had to hang up. “I got to go, Beatrice. Let me know if your tongue don’t get better.”
I sat in my chair a long time, wondering if I had done the right thing. I hated hurting her, but if the hurt would put an end to her pining over Percy, then maybe she could get on with her life. That poor girl never had much love of any kind. Her daddy run off when she was a baby, and her mama died young. As a child she never even had a pet dog or cat. That’s probably why she loved that old tomcat the way she did. That was the most spoiled animal in the U.S. of A.
As I sat there thinking about Beatrice, a lump got stuck in my throat. I had to fight back the tears. “Lord,” I said, “can’t you bring somebody into Beatrice’s life besides me who will love her?”
I knew that was a big order and not likely to happen, but it seemed like the only decent thing I could do, now that I had done in Percy.
5
I didn’t hear from Beatrice for a long time. Several times I thought about calling her. I had a good excuse—I could just say I was calling to see if her tongue was still black. Of course, I knew she was well or I would’ve heard different.
So I went about my business, even though I still worried about her. I did kind of get her off my mind when I went to church one Wednesday night, because the trouble with that music man made me put Beatrice on the back burner.
The latest with Boris Krantz was that he weren’t satisfied with the piano and organ we worked so hard to pay for. He had to have that backup music on tape. We would sit there on pins and needles while he fiddled with the machine, and the youth choir would stand waiting for him to get the tape started at the right place. It would get going, and they would start singing all this music that comes straight out of Nashville. And if that weren’t bad enough, one Sunday he had a young boy, who was not a member of our church, play the guitar. Only he couldn’t half play.
As I saw it, the Willing Workers wouldn’t stand for much of that nonsense once they caught on to what Boris was up to. Little by little, he was sneaking in a full-fledged band like they got down at Bethel Church. First a guitar, next thing there’d be a drummer banging away and all kinds of brass horns blasting eardrums and personally driving me up the wall.
I tell you, it seemed to me the world was coming into the church, and it was coming in fast! I was sure it was all this good economy we were having. Hard times is better for keeping folks close to the Lord. Like Splurgeon says, “If we have nothing but prosperity, we will be burned up with worldliness.” I tell you, Apostolic Bible Church was beginning to smell of the smoke of worldliness!
Enough of that. Much to my relief, I finally did get a three-page letter from Beatrice, but there was not a word in it about Percy. I was shocked. What did that mean? Was she mad at me? Was she over him? Had she cooked up some other crazy explanation, like the reason he had got married three times was because he really loved her and didn’t know it? I tell you, Beatrice did not live in the real world!
Well, what she did write was that her tongue was better and she was sticking to fresh vegetables and buttermilk. “To tell the truth,” she wrote, “I was getting sick of that mayo.”
Well, who wouldn’t!
“I am not sleeping good at all,” she continued.
The couple that moved in upstairs come home from their honeymoon fighting and they’ve been fighting like cats and dogs ever since. All that yelling and slamming doors is like to drive me crazy.
That’s the way it always was with Beatrice; if it wasn’t one thing, it was another.
As if all that fighting was not enough, my feet are killing me. A rich lady come in the store yesterday and she saw me rubbing my one foot. She told me my feet hurt from standing on that concrete floor and she gave me the card of somebody she said I should go see. He has a foreign name and he is a p-o-d-i-a-t-r-i-s-t. I don’t know what that is. Like as not he is one of them gurus or sighkicks. I am not about to go to one of them.
Esmeralda, when I think of Christians like Mr. Splurgeon, I feel so useless. He never went to Apostolic Bible, did he? I could never do all he did, but I wish there was something I could do for the Lord.
Yours very truly,
Beatrice
I was busy as all get out, but seeing as how she was overrun with stuff she couldn’t handle, I took the time to write right back to her.
Dear Beatrice,
As for your feet you have probably got bunions right and left. Every night soak your feet in warm Epsom salts. The onliest doctor you need is Dr. Scholl. You will find his stuff in any decent drugstore and he don’t send bills. Ha! Ha! Get yourself some of them footpads that will hold up your archers and leave them bunions room to breathe. You better hurry. Li
ke as not any day now them HMOs who want a monopoly on health care will find a way to outlaw Dr. Scholl!
As for finding something to do for the Lord, Beatrice, I say we do everything for the Lord.
You asked me about Mr. Splurgeon. No, he don’t go to Apostolic Bible. He had a tabernacle up in Baltimore or some place away from here. I think he’s dead now. The picture in the book shows he was too fat and he smoked, so most likely he is pushing up daisies. Bud’s mama gave him this Splurgeon book and I have near about memorized it. Bud loved that book. Even after he came home from the war and his brain had left him, whenever he had to go to the veterans hospital I would take his Bible and the Splurgeon book with us. I have put it in my will that when I die Splurgeon’s book will go to Reverend Osborne.
I’d write more but I’ve got to get up to Mrs. Purdy’s. You remember old Mrs. Purdy lives up on the hill. Lost her eyesight a few years back. Her cat got gone and Elmer said he had sent his part-time help up there to look all over the neighborhood for it. It’s been gone five days, he said. Well, it don’t look like Flossie Ann is coming back and if she don’t that’ll be the death of Mrs. Purdy. I’m going up there to see what I can do. I read my Bible this morning and prayed I’d find that cat but it is not likely. Splurgeon says, “Hear God and He will hear you,” so I’m just counting on that. I got to go now.
Esmeralda
When I got up the hill, I found poor old Mrs. Purdy just sitting in her chair, grieving her heart out. As I went about washing her dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, she kept calling me.
“Esmeralda, never mind the housework, just find my precious Flossie Ann.”
“I’m looking,” I’d say, and I was. But I had serious doubts that I’d ever find her, especially alive. As I scrubbed the floors, vacuumed, and dusted—all the while I was doing them things—I was looking in cabinets and closets and so forth, hoping I wouldn’t find a stiff corpse but that Flossie Ann would pop out at me, alive and well. I went down in the basement, then up in the attic, but there was no sign of that cat.
I was about to give up, thinking my worst fears had come true—that Flossie Ann was pasted on the road someplace. I started asking the Lord that since it was not his will to let me find her, would he please give me the words to ease Mrs. Purdy’s broke heart.
But then I went back in the spare bedroom to straighten out the dresser drawers and pulled out the bottom one. Lo and behold, there was Flossie Ann! She looked up at me, her eyes pitiful enough to make a grown man cry.
“I found her!” I hollered, and as I gently gathered her up in my arms, I could hear Mrs. Purdy shouting, “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!”
That cat was so bony that I wrapped a towel around her so as not to hurt her. Then I carried the little thing to the living room, where Mrs. Purdy was reaching out with both arms. The minute she touched Flossie Ann, she grabbed her out of my hands and hugged her so close I was afraid she’d kill the poor creature.
I wish you could have seen them two—Mrs. Purdy just a-bawling and a-laughing at the same time, and Flossie Ann looking up at her kind of cross-eyed, too weak to meow.
“Where’d you find her?” Mrs. Purdy asked. I told her I’d found Flossie Ann in a drawer. She commenced to feeling the cat all over. “She’s too warm. How does she look?”
“A mite skinny,” I told her, “but she’ll not die. You better let me have her, Mrs. Purdy. She needs taking care of.”
“That’s right. Here, you take her.” And she lifted Flossie Ann ever so gently. “See that she gets plenty of water. Where’s my cane? . . . Thank you kindly. You go along, I’ll get there in a minute or two.”
I took Flossie Ann to the kitchen to feed her. She was too weak to drink by herself, so I got the meat-basting thing, filled it with water, and put it to her mouth.
Mrs. Purdy tapped her way into the kitchen. “ Esmeralda, what do you think?”
“She’s wobbly, Mrs. Purdy, but I’ll see to it she gets over this.”
It took a while, but as soon as Flossie Ann had all the water she wanted, I eased her down on the floor. “Now, Mrs. Purdy, can’t I fix you some oatmeal or something?”
“Well, now, I reckon you can. Guess I ain’t et much in I don’t know how long.”
That was no surprise to me. “I’d say it’s near about as many days as Flossie Ann’s been missing.”
“You’re probably right.” She felt for the chair and sat down at the table. “Seems like I should’ve heard her calling me in that drawer.”
“Oh, now, Mrs. Purdy, you and me both have got hearing loss.”
Oatmeal cooks fast, and after I’d served Mrs. Purdy a bowl of it, I put the brown sugar and milk where she could reach it. Then I went back to the bedroom to make sure there was no mess in that drawer. It wasn’t too bad, so I cleaned it up and was about to come out the door when I spotted a 1958 calendar on the wall. There was a picture of the Grand Canyon on it that was still in good condition, so I asked Mrs. Purdy if I could have it. Of course, she said I could.
Beatrice had always talked about going to the Grand Canyon, and I knew she’d just love the picture. Which, I figured, was about as close as she’d ever get to the real thing.
I was tired when I got home that day. I flopped in my chair and thought, Oh me of little faith, because for once I could see the Lord had really answered my prayer about finding that cat. But what bothered me was that he didn’t seem to answer the big things in life. Having prayed my heart out for Bud to come back from the war safe and sound and him winding up like he did was something I would never understand. And the thing about the preacher and his wife not having a baby when all over the country women were doing away with babies before they were born, I would never understand.
I knew all the things people said about unanswered prayer, like “You have not got enough faith.” Well, my faith might’ve been the size of a grain of mustard seed (I knew I had got that much, maybe more), but Jesus said this much planted in God was enough. People would argue that if your prayer be not answered, there was something wrong in your life. But not a day went by that I didn’t ask the Lord to forgive me for any sin I’d committed, and I knew he wiped the slate clean. “The Lord is testing you,” people would say, but my Bible told me God don’t tempt nobody. Or people would say, “Just wait.” Well, I waited till the day Bud died for the Lord to do something for him, and all I got was a flat-out no!
As soon as I let that thought slip out, I was sorry. Of course, the Lord knew I was mad about it. He knew my heart. He still does, and when I flare up like that, I’m always sorry.
It’s just that sometimes I can’t leave it be, Lord.
I sighed, weary with thinking about it.
6
I love my Sundays! I start getting ready on Saturday night—lay out the clothes I’m going to wear, see that they are pressed, wash and roll up my hair. While it dries, I read my Sunday school lesson.
Since it was not raining the Sunday after I found Flossie Ann, I walked to church. In class, Clara didn’t take up all the time telling us who was sick and all, so we had a pretty decent lesson.
I tell you, Pastor Osborne’s morning prayer always takes me right up to heaven, and that morning was no exception. His morning prayer isn’t one of them that gives the Lord a shopping list of who’s sick or in the hospital. He starts off with worshiping the Lord, then moves on to blessing the congregation from the little children right on up to the elders and deacons. He always prays for those in authority over us, the president right on down to the mayor. You would think he has the newspaper open before him, the way he prays for crimes to be solved, for missing children, for prisoners on death row, for victims of storms and accidents. Missionaries get prayed for by name, and their needs get mentioned. Then on different Sundays he takes turns praying for teachers, policemen, doctors, and nurses—all the like of that. That morning he prayed for two Hollywood celebrities who were in trouble.
After a prayer like that, my heart was ready to hear the mes
sage, and what a message it was! He spoke on tears and sighs. I wondered what he would get out of that until he explained that tears and sighs are sometimes our best prayers. His text came from Exodus, the part when the children of Israel were in bondage and suffering so bad, and the Lord told them, “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears.” Oh, it was wonderful! After all, hasn’t every one of us been at that place where we hardly know how to pray anymore and we just flood our pillows with tears?
Pastor Osborne said David once prayed that the Lord would put his tears in a bottle. To me that meant that David didn’t want the Lord to forget whatever it was he wept over. I didn’t know where David got the idea of the bottle, but Pastor Osborne explained that women collected their tears in a container of some kind and maybe those were the tears Mary used to wash Jesus’ feet.
I just marveled at that man. You never got one of them quickie sermons off the top of his head like some preachers would give you.
People in my church are quick to clap at any little thing like they were watching TV or some entertainment, but that morning the Spirit was moving, and you could hear a pin drop.
While he was talking, I found myself wishing he had used that verse, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Pastor Osborne never fails to sow the good seed of the Word of God at Apostolic, but with hard hearts and minds made up, it hasn’t always been easy. But he was and still is a real soul-winner who goes after the drunks and wife-beaters as well as the top dogs in town. I bet he’s watered that seed real good with his tears. I hope I live long enough for that morning when he reaps with joy.
Mercy Me Page 3