Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  Father Tim thumped into a worn, silk-covered chair once belonging to Olivia’s deceased mother. “Hoppy says you’re going to do just fine if you stick to what he tells you. And there, my friend, is the rub.”

  “What rub?”

  “Sticking to what the doctor tells you.”

  Joe grunted, pulling the cover under his chin.

  “And just think what lies ahead!”

  “What lies ahead?” asked Joe, suspicious.

  “You’re retired now, you can go fishing!”

  “I never fished in my life an’ I don’t expect t’ start now.”

  “Aha. So, what will you do?”

  “Cross-stitch,” said Joe.

  “Cross-stitch? That beats all I ever heard. In fact, maybe I didn’t hear right….”

  “Men do needlework, too, you know.” Joe looked more than a little ticked.

  “Yes, but it’s the last thing I’d ever dream would interest you.”

  “So what’d you think might in’erest me?”

  “I don’t know; I never thought about it. Maybe…greeting customers at Wal-Mart in Wesley?”

  Joe looked menacing. “You got t’ be kiddin’ me.”

  “It pays well, you get to meet a lot of nice people.”

  “I’ve met all th’ nice people I ever want t’ meet,” said Joe. “I don’t need t’ meet n’more nice people.”

  Being a priest was hard. You had to try and make sick people feel better, even when they had no intention of feeling better.

  He talked to the Hope House administrator; all rooms were full. Though Mr. Berman was the eldest of the residents, he’d made it clear that he had no intention of going anywhere anytime soon, and the resident whom they thought last week might be dying had rallied and was planning her ninetieth birthday party. However, given Miss Rose’s link to Miss Sadie, the administrator would do what she could as soon as a room came open.

  Why was he always messing in other people’s business? He had never understood this lifelong compulsion, especially as it often landed him in trouble.

  He phoned Betty Craig.

  “Betty, now that Russell’s gone—”

  “Don’t even say it, Father. I been hopin’ you wouldn’t call, I know what you want me to do.”

  “What do I want you to do?”

  “You want me to look after Miss Rose Watson, and maybe Uncle Billy, too, if he makes it.”

  “Oh, he’s going to make it, all right. What I propose is—”

  “It gives me th’ shivers just to think of lookin’ after Miss Rose.”

  “I understand, Betty, but consider this—you’re the best one there is.”

  “No, sir, don’t try to sweet-talk me, I’m the only one there is, outside of Hope House.”

  “Right. But you are the best, Betty. Look what you did for Russell Jacks—softened his disposition, lengthened his life…”

  “Shortened mine….”

  “Betty, what if you go to the town museum twice a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, that’s all? I’m not asking you to take anybody into your home like we did with Russell.”

  “Twice a day?”

  “That’s all, ’til we can get something open at Hope House. Uncle Billy needs to be watched; he might go off his medication, and I expect Miss Rose is none too regular with her own.”

  Betty sighed.

  “Maybe you could look after their meals twice a day, while you’re at it. We’ll get someone to come in and clean.”

  Betty was thinking….

  “I suppose I wouldn’t be a good Christian if I turned you down,” she said.

  “If you turn me down, it wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with whether you’re a Christian, good or otherwise.”

  Betty was thinking some more.

  “What if I pray about it and call you back, Father? How would that be?”

  “I think that’s one of the wisest answers anyone has given me about anything in a long time,” he said.

  “Dry, ain’t it?”

  “The worst I can remember in some years. Kindly fill it up, and sweep me out if the offer still holds.” Father Tim slid from behind the wheel and located a paper towel to clean his windshields.

  “I’m about to give up on this sweepin’ out business,” said Lew.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Age. Age and drivin’ t’ Tennessee ever’ weekend. I’m feelin’ about six cookies short of a dozen.”

  “I’ve been wondering—how can you keep Earlene a secret in this town? Hasn’t anybody guessed you’ve got a sweetheart up the road?”

  “No, sir, I tell ’em I’m visitin’ my old aunt.”

  “You have an old aunt in Tennessee?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. Th’ one that taught me pickle-makin’.”

  “That’s a convenient story, all right, but I don’t know how long it will go over.”

  “Dry as tinder,” said Lew, pumping Exxon into the tank of the Mustang. “I don’t allow no smokin’ around th’ station ’til after we get a good rain.”

  “Is Harley anywhere to be found?”

  “In th’ grease rack,” said Lew.

  “Harley!”

  “Rev’ren’, how’re you comin’ along?”

  Merely laying eyes on Harley Welch gave him a certain happiness.

  “Couldn’t be better!” he said. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you back,” said Harley.

  “Let’s get together.”

  “Yes, sir. When might that be?”

  “You and George come over to the house Friday night. I’ll make Mississippi barbecue.”

  There went Harley’s toothless grin, meeting behind his head again.

  Emma had shown him how to go online, and after painstaking deliberation, he’d chosen an address and a code word.

  He thought this address the cleverest, most unique idea he’d come up with in an eon, but someone else already had it. Who else could possibly have chosen such a thing? He went through three additional clever and unique addresses before one was finally accepted. The code word, Barnabas, made it through whatever maze these things might contain, which gave him a small comfort.

  He sat with her while they e-mailed Walter and Katherine, an act that was guaranteed to blow their minds, then as soon as Emma left, he forgot everything she’d told him and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.

  Finding the minuscule glyphs and directions hard to read on the black case, he got out a magnifying glass and finally figured how to turn it off. When he booted it up again to make sure he hadn’t broken it, he was confronted with a terrible warning on the screen, a dire prognostication that alarmed him greatly.

  He shut it off and clamped down the lid and, in the absence of his wife, who was at a Bible study, went to the Grill for lunch, shaking his head.

  “Dry,” said Mule. “Th’ grass at my place is hist’ry.”

  Percy set two glasses of water on the table of the rear booth. “My garden’s been s’ punk, I plowed it up. Got four little t’matoes, a handful of limas, an’ three ears of corn I fed to th’ squirrels.”

  “I didn’t garden this year,” said Father Tim.

  “If you were goin’ t’ skip a year, this was th’ year t’ skip.”

  “Profoundly true.”

  “What’re y’all havin’?”

  “We’re waitin’ for J.C.,” said Mule. “You can bring me a Diet Coke. No, let’s see…make that a Pepsi.”

  “Diet Pepsi,” Percy said, writing.

  Mule shook his head. “I don’t like diet Pepsi.”

  “So you’re orderin’ a regular Pepsi? Is that what I’m hearin’?”

  “That’s it.”

  “How ’bout you?”

  “Water,” said Father Tim. “I’ve got it right here.”

  “What’s th’ special?” Mule wanted to know.

  “Gizzards,” said Percy.

  Mule smacked his forehead. “I forgot this is Tuesday. Seem like you
ought t’ have two specials on Tuesday, to give a man a choice.”

  “This ain’t a four-star restaurant where th’ specials outnumber th’ reg’lar menu items. It’s aggravation enough th’ way it is.”

  “Gentlemen?”

  “Reverend Tipton!” Father Tim scooted from the booth and shook hands with Mitford’s new Methodist.

  “You didn’t have to get up for me, Father.”

  “It’s time clergy got a little respect around here.”

  Mule stood and shook hands with enthusiasm.

  “Could you squeeze in one more, or would another day suit better?”

  “Always room for one more!”

  “Yes ma’am!” said Mule. “Always!”

  “We’re just waiting for our newspaper editor, J. C. Hogan, he’ll be along any minute.”

  Mule sat down fast and slid to the corner. “Here you go!” he said to Millie Tipton, slapping the seat beside him.

  Father Tim was disappointed to note that this forced him to sit on J.C.’s side, usually occupied only by J.C. and, of course, the editor’s briefcase, which was loosely the size of a panel truck.

  No doubt about it, the new pastor was an attractive woman—tall, dark-haired, eyeglasses on a pearl chain, and looking far better in a black shirt and collar than he ever would.

  Millie Tipton, they discovered, was a fount of information. She hailed from Daphne, Alabama, where her parents still resided. She was happy to be in Mitford. She liked Italian cooking, quilting, and reading. And she was living on the road to Farmer in a little stone house with two dogs, a cat, and a bed of dahlias that appeared to be thriving in the drought.

  “Looks like we’ve got a two-collar town goin’ here.” Mule seemed downright pleased.

  “Three-collar,” said Father Tim. “Don’t forget Father Talbot at Lord’s Chapel.”

  “One stoplight and three collars. That’s an unusual ratio.” Mule turned and peered at his seat mate. “Never married?”

  “Not yet,” she said, looking amiable about it.

  Percy stepped over to meet Millie Tipton, declaring he’d been raised Methodist, but had fallen away to the Baptists twenty years ago.

  “Then you probably know,” said Millie, “how many Baptists it takes to change a light bulb.”

  “No, ma’am, can’t say I do.”

  “At least fifteen. One to change the bulb, and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the fried chicken.”

  Percy cracked up.

  “I’m a Baptist now, too, but I was raised Lutheran,” said Mule, trying to be informative.

  “Ah, the Lutherans! Everybody knows how many Lutherans it takes to change a light bulb.”

  She looked around the table, obviously enjoying herself.

  “How many?” asked Mule.

  “None. Lutherans don’t like change.”

  Guffaws, general hooting. In the front booth, two town councilmen thought the rear booth was helping itself to a mighty loud hullabaloo….

  “All right,” said Percy. “Y’all got t’ git down t’ business, I’m shorthanded. Let J.C. fend for hisself when he gets here. What’re you havin’, Rev’ren’?”

  “Please call me Millie!”

  Percy had no intention of calling a preacher by a first name, especially a good-looking woman preacher.

  Millie put her glasses on. “Let’s see…I’m new at this menu, it’ll take a minute. Y’all please go ahead and order.”

  “I’ll have the tuna sandwich on whole wheat,” said Father Tim.

  “Toasted, no mayo, and a side of cole slaw.”

  “He always knows what he wants,” Mule informed Millie.

  “Hop to it,” said Percy.

  “I’m ready for you, buddyroe. Shoot me a hotdog all th’ way!”

  “Hotdog all th’ way.”

  “Right. No onions, no mustard, an’ leave off th’ relish.”

  Percy shook his head; he wasn’t going there.

  Millie Tipton gave Percy a big smile. “And I’ll have the gizzards.”

  He spent a full afternoon at the Children’s Hospital, laughing, crying, telling stories, counseling with a parent, holding small hands, praying. It never failed to be a workout of the emotions; afterward, he was either filled with elation or numb with suffering, and no in between.

  It occurred to him to ask Millie Tipton if she’d consider making a weekly visit, as well—she seemed to have enough energy to go around.

  In truth, the ratio of three collars to one stoplight was a ratio sorely needed, and then some.

  “Father? It’s Gene Bolick.”

  “Gene! God bless you, my friend. How are you?”

  “Not too bad, under th’ circumstances. Whoa, wait a minute, I forgot I’m tryin’ to live over th’ circumstances, not under ’em.”

  “Well said!”

  “I wanted to tell you somethin’.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Just wanted to say how much I appreciated your sermon on Sunday.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Seem like you were talkin’ directly to me.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “How can a man thank God for a brain tumor? That’s what I’ve been askin’ myself. But I can thank Him it’s brought our daughter closer to us, th’ one livin’ over in Asheville, and it sure makes me look at every day a whole lot different.

  “In other words, it seems to me that God is usin’ th’ tumor to…I guess what I’m sayin’ is, a tumor’s a bad thing, but I see how it’s caused good things to happen.” Gene choked up.

  “I hear you.”

  “So, that’s about it.”

  “Thank you, Gene. God loves a grateful heart, He’ll bless you for it.”

  “You doin’ all right?”

  “I am!”

  “Well, you come up and see us anytime. Esther’s bakin’ apple pies today, she said tell you she’ll leave th’ sugar out of one if you’ll come up an’ get it.”

  “That,” he said, “is the best offer I’ve had all day.”

  Eager to give another tutorial, Emma stopped by on her way to The Local, showed him again how to retrieve his e-mail, and delivered one of her own.

  Dear Mrs. Newland,

  We are thrilled and delighted at the prospect of becoming a

  Sister Village with Mitford. We are writing to enquire your thinking re: how we should exchange delegates to make this happy alliance an official reality.

  We expect to send Andrew and Margaret Hart, a charming couple whose unanimous election has been a matter of some rejoicing, as Andrew has relatives living in the eastern part of your state whom he has never met. We feel the months of May or June of next year would be a grand time for the individual ceremonies, if that would be convenient to your own schedule, of course.

  The weather in our Mitford is usually very lovely at that season, though last year we had the most dreadful heat wave, and the year prior to that, a perilous flooding that washed our newly-planted rhododendron into the neighbor’s ha-ha.

  Do let us know.

  With greetings to all, we remain…

  The Mitford (UK) Sister Village Coordinating Committee

  “Who do you think should go?” he asked Emma.

  “Why, th’ mayor, of course, that’s th’ sort of thing mayors do.”

  “If he can’t go, who do you think? Hessie Mayhew?”

  “Hessie Mayhew?”

  Emma’s indignation nearly blew him against the wall. “Why not?”

  “Why not? She’s Presbyterian, that’s why not.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I’ve been workin’ with th’ Anglicans over there, th’ whole thing’s bein’ done thro’ th’ Anglicans!”

  “I see. But don’t you think the delegate should be somebody who simply represents the spirit—the heart, if you will—of our Mitford, regardless of denomination?”

  “What I really think is, you should be th’ one goin’.”

&
nbsp; “How quickly you forget. I’m not flying across that pond or any other.”

  “You bought a computer,” she reminded him.

  “Give you an inch, you want a mile.”

  “Maybe Esther Cunningham. She was mayor for how many years, eighteen?”

  “Esther won’t do it, she’d rather be traveling with Ray in the RV. I’d talk to Andrew if I were you, get his thoughts.”

  “Right,” she said.

  “You know who I’d send?”

  “Who?”

  “You,” he said.

  “Me?”

  “It was your idea. It’s your hard work that got us to this point. I think you should do it. In fact, I’ll mention it to the mayor.”

  “Fly all that way over water?”

  “Don’t look down,” he said. “Get a seat on the aisle.”

  She frowned. “I’m too fat to go to England. Plus I don’t have anything to wear. Nothin’. And even though I used to be Episcopalian, now I’m a Baptist.”

  “Umm,” he said.

  “An’ Snickers…I’ve never left Snickers. I don’t know if he could live without me.”

  “Scared of flying, too fat, nothing to wear, dog will keel over, and a Baptist! You’ve convinced me. If I were you, I wouldn’t go, either.”

  She peered at him over her half-glasses. He knew that look. She was waiting to be begged, cajoled, wheedled, and coaxed. But no way. Let that job fall to somebody else.

  She picked up the e-mail and studied it. “What in th’ dickens does this mean…‘washed into the neighbor’s ha-ha’?”

  “A ha-ha is a ditch, a sort of ravine that cows won’t cross. Saves on fencing.”

  “The way they say things over there, you’d think they live in a foreign country.”

  “They do live in a foreign country.”

  He went back to paging through the essays she had typed and printed out before the era of his own p.c.

  “OK,” she said.

  “OK what?”

  “If th’ mayor asks me, I’ll go. I’ll give up potatoes, gravy, bread, an’ ice cream startin’ in January. That way, I’ll lose ten pounds by May, which means I can get in that blue suit you’ve seen me wear, th’ one with th’ gold buttons, and that orange knit dress with a jacket. You remember that orange knit dress with a jacket.”