Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  He squeezed a bit of paint from three tubes into a saucer and blended the colors with a plastic knife. He wanted to get his fingers in the stuff, but the telltale signs of oil glaze were hard to remove, and harder still to hide from an inquisitive wife.

  He showed the contents of the saucer to Fred. “What do you think?”

  “You goin’ for burlap?”

  “Going for burlap.”

  “I’d say a little more brown.”

  “Done!”

  They worked for a time, silent, oblivious to the Mozart concerto on the radio.

  “These tails are way yonder longer’n we used to do at my gran’daddy’s. We docked ’em pretty short when I was comin’ along.”

  “How many sheep did you have?”

  “Four hundred!”

  “Man!” he said, quoting Dooley.

  “We raised Dorset, mostly, and a few Blue Face. I was what you might call a shepherd, myself, now an’ again.”

  Father Tim figured he’d been seven or eight years old the Christmas he determined to do what the Bethlehem shepherds had done.

  Reverend Simon, a fervent Bible scholar and his mother’s much-loved Baptist preacher, explained the passage from Luke to the Sunday School class of eight- to ten-year-olds. Reverend Simon had them all toeing the mark; he was a big man with unruly hair and spectacles that enlarged his eyes in a frightening way. Someone said he had ruined his eyes reading the Bible, and knew more about everything in it than anyone alive. He taught their class the way he taught the congregation, with extravagant gestures and studied pauses and bursts of song in a rich, baritone voice that rattled the windowpanes.

  “Who were these shepherds?” he thundered. His magnified brown eyes roamed the small classroom as if demanding an answer, but no one raised a hand.

  “They were merely a few local boys from over the hill! Boys like you, Tom, and you, Chester, and you, Timothy!

  “When they received the word from the heavenly host and recovered from their fright, what did they do? They didn’t dillydally, they didn’t put it off ’til morning, they didn’t wait ’til they’d fried up some bacon, they made haste! ‘And they came with haste,’ St. Luke tells us, they came lickety-split toward that bright and shining star, to see the wonder of the Savior, to experience His glory, to observe His mystery.

  “Now, children, how do you think they got there?”

  Though Reverend Simon had no intention of soliciting an answer, Mary Jane Mason raised her hand with fear and trembling, and replied with the only transport known to her. “In a Dodge sedan?”

  “My dear child, they had no Dodge sedan nor even a Buick Town Car, they had no mules or oxen or donkeys or carts or wagons. Indeed, they had no mode of transport save their own two feet!”

  Reverend Simon lifted one exceedingly large foot, shod in a shoe as black as a washpot, to demonstrate.

  “Indeed, they would have trod the several miles to the inn, almost certainly barefoot . . .”

  Here, Reverend Simon shivered mightily, wrapped an imaginary cloak about his large frame, and peered at them over his spectacles. “ . . . and in the bristling cold . . .”

  A long pause as he looked around at them.

  “ . . . in the bristling cold of a dark and wintry night!”

  Wishing to move beyond the carved and static figures of their Nativity scene, and enter somehow into the miracle itself, he had asked Tommy to walk around the barn with him the night before Christmas. He was convinced that something as fraught with risk and danger as this would responsibly equal the shepherds’ longer trek to the inn.

  “I ain’t walkin’ around no barn at night,” said Tommy. “An’ I ’specially ain’t doin’ it barefooted.”

  “But the shepherds had to do it, they had to walk all the way from the sheep pasture to Bethlehem while it was pitch-black dark.”

  “I ain’t doin’ it,” said Tommy.

  He had screwed up his courage then and, after donning an old sheet tied at his waist by a piece of jump rope, sat on the top porch step and waited for nightfall. He had checked the feet of the shepherds in their Nativity scene, and, to his enormous relief, they were wearing shoes.

  On her way home to the little house down the road, Peggy stopped on the porch and patted his head. “Your mama say come back soon as you does this.”

  He nodded.

  At the foot of the steps, she turned and looked at him. “An’ don’t you be lettin’ any spooks git my baby.”

  He had heard that, on Christmas Eve, animals talked, which seemed spooky enough. He wondered if he’d hear their two cows talking in the barn. The thought gave him a funny feeling in his stomach; he couldn’t imagine cows talking or what they might say. What if they busted out talking while he was down there by himself, in the dark?

  His mouth had been dry with fear, yet he wanted more than anything to somehow be one with those privileged to be first.

  “What are you doing?” His father approached the foot of the steps, seemingly annoyed to find his son wearing a sheet over his clothes and, worse still, accomplishing nothing of consequence.

  “I’m going to walk around the barn when it gets dark.” He said this louder than he might have done. “Sir.”

  His father looked at him as he often did—without appearing to see him.

  “Like the shepherds,” he said, eager to explain, and thereby make himself seen.

  “The shepherds?”

  “That went to worship the Baby Jesus. I know they didn’t walk around the barn, but . . .”

  In the leaden winter sky, a star or two had already appeared, and a sliver of moon. A bird called somewhere by the rabbit pen.

  “Timothy . . .”

  Something in his father’s voice was suddenly different; his eyes shone with a tenderness his son had never seen before.

  His father gazed at him for an instant more, then walked up the steps and into the house.

  He had sat there, numb with a mixture of joy and bewilderment. In one brief and startling moment, he realized that he was, after all, seen—and perhaps even loved. His heart beat faster, and his breath nearly left him.

  As dusk faded toward nightfall, he prayed again and walked down the steps onto frozen grass that crackled beneath his shoes like dry leaves.

  More stars had appeared; he looked above the ridge of the barn roof and picked a bright star that he might follow.

  He had reached the barn and touched its silvery, unpainted wood when he heard footsteps behind him. He whirled around and, in the twilit gloom, saw the figure of his father.

  “Timothy . . .”

  His father had walked with him then, neither of them speaking. When he, Timothy, stumbled over a castaway bucket, he instinctively flung out his hand, and his father caught it and held it in his own, and, in the cold and velveteen darkness, they continued around the silent barn, toward the house in which every window gleamed with light.

  “This pie’s thawed,” said Fred, sticking his forefinger into the filling.

  “I’m sorry—what did you say?”

  Timothy . . . The memory of that single and astonishing connection with his father might be lost for years at a time, only to return when least expected. . . .

  “Pie’s thawed. You want coffee?”

  “Sure,” he said, hoarse with feeling.

  He walked home along the empty sidewalk, illumined by a choir of angels. Formed by hundreds of tiny lights, the angels gleamed from every lamppost on both sides of their modest Main Street, giving it the look of a large and gracious boulevard.

  Gouging funds out of the town budget for a host of angels had, in his opinion, been the finest hour of their former mayor, Esther Cunningham.

  “You’ve been scarce as hens’ teeth,” said Mule.

  “Busy,” said Father Tim, thumping into the rear booth.

  “Big deal. Everybody’s busy this time of year. I’ve been havin’ to do breakfast and lunch solo.”

  “What’s J.C. doing? Starving to deat
h?”

  “We had lunch at th’ tea shop yesterday, and breakfast th’ day before.”

  “You just said you’d been eating solo.”

  Mule grinned. “I said that to make you feel sorry for me.”

  “It isn’t working.”

  Father Tim opened the single-fold menu. He was up for something different today. Enough already with tuna on dry toast.

  “Tell you what,” said Mule, “I’ll let you order for me! How’s that? You know what I like—order me whatever you want to!”

  “I can’t order for you, buddyroe, you can’t even order for yourself.”

  Mule shrugged. “I don’t have a clue what I want.”

  “There’s the rub.” As for himself, maybe he’d try the taco salad. Or the pimiento cheese on whole wheat . . .

  “I guess you heard what’s movin’ into this buildin’ when Percy leaves.”

  “Nope. I’ve been out of the loop for a while.”

  “A shoe store!”

  “Great news!”

  “That’s what I said. A man shouldn’t have to drive to another town to buy shoes.”

  “You don’t drive to another town to buy shoes,” said Father Tim. “All your shoes come from yard sales in Mitford.”

  “A penny saved is a penny earned. So what am I havin’?” Mule leaned forward in anticipation, as Velma swooped over like a crow from a pine tree.

  “Let me tell ’im what he’s havin’!” She shot her glasses down her nose, meaning business; she didn’t have all day to yank an order out of Mule Skinner. “He’s havin’ a bowl of vegetable soup with a hot cornstick! Today’s special!”

  Mule gave Velma a dark look. “What’s in th’ vegetable soup?”

  “Vegetables,” she said, tight-lipped.

  “Wait. Whoa.” Father Tim knew where this was headed. “Bring him a bacon cheeseburger, everything but onions, with fries on the side and a Diet Coke. And . . .” Should he do this?

  “And. . . ?” Velma’s pencil was poised in the air.

  “And I’ll have the same!” He exhaled.

  Speechless, Velma adjusted her glasses and stumped away.

  “Did you know,” said Father Tim, “that the average American eats over sixteen pounds of fries per year? As I’ve had only two or three orders in the last decade, I figure I’m due roughly a hundred and fifty-nine pounds.”

  “There’s only one problem,” said Mule.

  “What’s that?”

  “Th’ grease Percy uses for fries is th’ same he uses for fish. I don’t much like fish.”

  “So I’ve been wondering—how is J.C. getting upstairs to his pressroom since he refuses to set foot in this place?”

  “He’s usin’ th’ window on th’ landin’.”

  “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

  “Just shoots up th’ bottom sash, slips in like a house burglar, and up th’ steps he goes. By th’ way . . .”

  He thought Mule looked pained. “Yes?”

  “Fancy don’t like me to eat bacon.”

  “I forgot to ask Percy who won the photo contest. Did you hear?”

  “Lew Boyd.”

  “Great. That was a good shot.”

  “Plus. . . ,” said Mule.

  “Plus what?”

  “Plus Fancy wants me to cut out cheese. Too constipatin’.”

  “So! If you could have anything you want, what would you like for Christmas?”

  “Anything I want? Price no object?”

  “Right.”

  “A Rolodex watch!”

  “Aha!” said Father Tim, as their orders arrived with more than the usual flourish.

  He was glad Cynthia was out to a tea at Olivia Harper’s when Dooley called.

  “Hey,” said Dooley.

  “Hey, yourself, buddyroe! What’s up? When are you headed home?”

  “December twentieth.”

  “We can’t wait. I’ll have something to show you, but you mustn’t tell Cynthia.”

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  “I’m working on an old Nativity scene—twenty-odd pieces! Angels, shepherds, wise men, sheep—we’ve got ten sheep, total, a whole flock!”

  “You sound excited.”

  “I am. It’s great. Wait ’til you see it. I’m painting shepherds now. Next come angels.”

  “Sounds hard.”

  “It is hard.” He realized he was grinning. “But it’s . . .” He thought a moment. “It’s fun.”

  “So save me somethin’ to paint,” said Dooley.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “Consider it done! Have you heard from Sammy?”

  “He wrote me a letter. I’ll bring it so you and Cynthia can read it. It meant a lot to him to be with everybody at Thanksgiving.”

  “Buck and I are going down to see him next week.” Buck Leeper was Dooley’s stepdad, and a zealous teammate in the search for Dooley’s siblings. “We’ll take Poo and Jessie. I hope Sammy will come for Christmas.”

  “That would be great.” Dooley sounded pensive. “I’ve been thinking—would you take him all the clothes in my closet except my green sweatshirt and the last pair of jeans Cynthia bought me?”

  “He’s a little taller than you, but we’ll give it a try.”

  “Umm, don’t take that Italian suit Cynthia made me wear in New York, or the belt that’s hanging on the door.”

  “Got it.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think—I mean, like, really—that we’ll ever find Kenny?”

  “Yes!” he said without hesitating. “Yes!”

  “You haven’t given up?”

  “Never! I don’t know what to do right now, but God has been faithful. Four out of five, son! Let’s keep thanking Him for His providence . . . and praying and believing He’ll lead us to Kenny. Is that a deal?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Dooley. “It’s a deal.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said, taking her hand.

  They lay in bed and looked up at the ceiling, at the place where the streetlamp shone in and cast its light.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “All these years, I’ve remembered the hard things about my father. His indifference to my mother, his coldness toward me, his rage, his depression, the countless times he hurt us.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “When a person spends a lifetime hurting himself and others, it’s hard to remember the good things about him.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “I want to start remembering the time he looked at me . . .” His voice broke, and he lay still for a time. “It was only a look, nothing more, but it said everything I’d ever hoped to know.”

  There was a long silence.

  “And then he walked around the barn with me.” He couldn’t stop the flow of tears, nor did he wish to.

  “Tell me about it, dearest.”

  He told her.

  With all his heart, and with all his soul, he would attempt to put that moment, that dark yet somehow shining hour, at the front of his memories about his father. After all these years, it would be enough.

  At last, it would be enough.

  Father Tim opened the fifteenth door of their Advent calendar and read aloud a brief exegesis of verses from Luke’s second chapter.

  “ ‘And Joseph went up from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to be enrolled with Mary, who was with child.’ ”

  Cynthia thumbed the pages of her Bible to a map of the region that extended south from the Sea of Galilee. “From Galilee in the north to Judea in the south seems a long way, Timothy.”

  “Maybe ninety to a hundred miles. On a donkey, that’s roughly a week’s travel. It could have taken longer, of course, because of the pregnancy.”

  “I wonder what they ate.”

  “Whatever it was, they probably bought it from camel trains. They couldn’t have carried many
supplies.”

  “Isn’t a lot of this terrain open desert?”

  “It is.”

  “What would the weather have been like?”

  “Cold. Very cold,” he said. “Some say too cold for the shepherds around Bethlehem to be in the fields. They would have had their flocks under cover by October or November.”

  “So the birth may have occurred earlier, before they left the fields?”

  “Very likely. However, the tradition of a late-December Nativity is eighteen centuries old, and I’m not messing with that.”

  “Still, if they were traveling in December, nighttime temperatures would have been freezing.” His wife pondered this, shaking her head. “Just think! All that misery over taxes!”

  “Some things,” he said, “never change.”

  Harold Newland, the postman, bolted through the door at Happy Endings with a bundle of mail secured by a rubber band.

  “That’s a load off!” he said, thumping it on the counter next to Margaret Ann.

  “How about a cup of hot cider?” Hope thought Harold looked worn, to say the least. Probably all the catalogs, plus the fact that his wife, Emma, was in Atlanta with her pregnant daughter until after Christmas. . . .

  “No time to lollygag!” he said, hitching up his belt. “Have a good day!”

  “ ‘Thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks!’ ” Hope exclaimed, quoting Shakespeare.

  The postcard was on top. She saw it at once.

  Margaret Ann eyed Harold’s departure as Hope withdrew the card from beneath the rubber band and turned it over. It was from George Gaynor, known to Mitford as the Man in the Attic. After eight years in prison and a brief job assignment at Happy Endings, he had returned to the prison system as a chaplain.

  Inscribed in a bold hand, the card read:

  Dear Hope,

  Keep living up to your name.

  Your brother in Christ,

  George

  She blinked to hold back the tears. She was trying to live up to her name, but it was growing harder each day.

  It was now December 15, and still she’d had no word from Mrs. Mallory. Helen had phoned the Mallory attorneys on her behalf, but they claimed to know nothing about their client’s plans for this particular property, which was one of many in Mitford, Florida, and Spain.