Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  On the way to Hope House, he mused on Edith Mallory, for whom he often prayed, even when he didn’t want to.

  He couldn’t imagine having all logical thought blasted to smithereens. The childhood memory of running his hand into the grain bin at the hardware store came to mind. Tens of thousands of grains of corn, all looking and feeling alike, and all silken to his touch—what if he’d been searching for one particular grain in the bin, as Edith was searching for a particular word in the great sea of random words turned loose in her mind?

  Lord, he prayed, help her find the next word. And the next, and the next ...

  “Louella?”

  Louella sat in her chair by the window, the television on mute.

  “Miss Louella is sleepin’,” whispered the nurse, who tiptoed in behind him. “She stayed up late last night watchin’ the beauty pageant.”

  “Please tell her I stopped by and will stop again, will you?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “How is she?” It had somehow astonished him to find her sleeping; he’d thought for a moment...

  “Oh, she’s well, very well. We had to get that little bladder infection treated, you know, that wasn’t a good thing, but other than that, she’s perky and has her appetite!”

  After the nurse left, he stood by her chair and prayed for his friend and Miss Sadie’s much-loved companion; he did not want to lose Louella.

  He drove the Mustang from Hope House to Old Church Lane and turned right onto Main Street, where he parked in front of Dora Pugh’s Hardware.

  “Can you duplicate this?” he asked Dora.

  “Now, Father, you know better than to ask me if I can do somethin’ .”

  “Right, but can you?”

  Dora cackled. “Of course I can. But where’d you find this thing? It looks like somethin’ that dropped out of our town founder’s saddlebag when he rode up th’ mountain in 1846. Or was it 1864?”

  With the new key on the sterling ring given him by Walter and Katherine, he walked at a clip to the Sweet Stuff Bakery and made a purchase. Using Winnie’s phone, he also made a call to Esther Bolick, but there was no answer and no answering machine.

  Afterward, he dashed to The Local and dropped off a shopping list that Avis would have ready for pickup before the trek home to Meadowgate.

  With the still-warm paper bag sitting on the passenger seat, he drove north on Main, made a left onto Lilac Road, and a right into the rear entrance of the Porter place, aka Mitford town museum.

  He rapped on the backdoor, hard by a green plastic hanging basket containing the remnants of last summer’s geranium, and heard a shuffling gait on the other side.

  “Who is it?” squawked Miss Rose, throwing open the door.

  She was barefoot, and wearing a chenille robe topped by a woolen Army jacket with several war medals displayed on the lapel.

  “It’s the preacher. I’ve come to visit!” He spoke loudly, and tried to sound cheerful, but truth be told, Miss Rose had always scared him half to death.

  “Bill’s laid up in bed.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “I don’t know; I haven’t asked him.”

  “May I come in and sit with him?”

  “We’re not able to entertain company.”

  “I have a bag of doughnuts for the two of you, but I guess I’ll just... take them home and eat them myself.” He’d never said anything so contrary to Miss Rose.

  “Come in, come in!”

  He thought the old woman looked less, but only a little less, fierce.

  “And be quick about it,” she commanded. Still clutching the paper bag, he blew past Miss Rose and down the hall to the bedroom, which smelled strongly of urine.

  Kneeling beside Uncle Billy’s bed, he saw that his face appeared unnaturally puffy.

  “I’ve brought you a doughnut, Uncle Billy. Still warm. Winnie sends her love.”

  “I’ll be et f’r a tater”—Uncle Billy’s breathing was labored—“if it ain’t th’ preacher.” His eyes opened, then fluttered shut.

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  Uncle Billy coughed. “Sharp as a briar.”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  His friend’s hand was dry and fragile, a corn husk in winter.

  “Uncle Billy, can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “I done tol’ you,” Uncle Billy whispered.

  “Tell me again, if you will, I didn’t quite hear it.”

  Uncle Billy’s eyelids trembled.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  He ran to the kitchen and tossed the bag of doughnuts on the table. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “You’ll pay for it, then!” Miss Rose gave him a menacing look, grabbed the bag, and shuffled along the hall to the bathroom. He heard the lock click into place.

  He tried the wall phone, but the line was dead, and he had no cell phone. Like it or not, he’d have to start carrying a cell phone with the rest of the common horde.

  “I’ll be back!” he shouted.

  He ran across the side yard and ducked through the bushes and sprinted across the street in front of the monument and raced up the steps of the town hall and through the lobby and into the mayor’s office where the receptionist was reading People magazine.

  “Get an ambulance out to the Porter place,” he said, gasping for breath. “It’s Uncle Billy.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Above the Cloud

  “Congestive heart failure,” said Hoppy.

  “His heart isn’t pumping normally, but the medications are working; we’re getting the fluid off. I think he can pull through this.”

  “Thank God.”

  “He’ll pee a bucket, which will help his breathing and get rid of the swelling. But what happens when he gets out of here? That’s where the cheese gets binding. He’ll need to restrict his salt intake, big time, and somebody needs to see that he gets a decent diet.”

  “That’s a tough one. Miss Rose refuses to move up to Hope House and Uncle Billy won’t leave without her. But—I’ll do what I can. By the way, we loved seeing Lace.”

  “We loved seeing Dooley,” said his old friend and overworked town doctor.

  In the deeps of New Jersey, the answering service of his cousin Walter’s law practice advised him that Mr. Kavanagh was next door at Starbucks and would be along any minute, leave a number.

  He rang Dooley’s mother, Pauline Leeper, in the dining room at Hope House, and asked if he could drop by later in the week.

  “Is anything wrong?” He heard the anxiety in her voice.

  “No, nothing wrong at all,” he assured her. He felt certain Pauline would approve. In any case, Dooley was twenty-one, and fully able to make this decision without parental approval.

  He dialed Betty Craig at the little house where Dooley’s grandfather Russell Jacks had lived out his last years in a spare bedroom.

  “Betty! It’s s ...”

  “Father Tim! I know your voice, an’ I know why you’re callin’ me.”

  “Now, Betty ...”

  “You want me to go an’ sit with Miss Rose while Uncle Billy’s in th’ hospital!”

  What could he say? “Will you do it?”

  Long, pondering silence. “My rates have gone up!” she blurted.

  “Not a problem.”

  “It’s not?”

  Betty Craig, who had tried for several years to retire from registered nursing, was too kind to refuse outright this onerous opportunity.

  “Not at all. In truth, you’ve been needing to raise your rates.”

  “I have?”

  “Can you go over this morning and take care of the laundry and change the sheets and do a little cooking?”

  “Well, but...”

  “Why don’t we raise your rate by twenty percent? Does that sound fair?”

  “Oh, very fair.”

  “Whatever you need at The Local, put it on my account. Thank you, Betty, and of course, when Uncle Billy
comes home, we’ll need you to do all the good things you did last time he was sick. God bless you, you’re an angel. Let me know your hours.”

  He hung up quickly, took a deep breath, and dialed again.

  “Buck?”

  “... in a hole ...” Static.

  “Call me at the farm.You have my number?”

  Static. “Down th’ mountain...” Static. Dial tone.

  He checked his e-mail.

  Five messages.

  He didn’t have all day, he had to get up to Holy Trinity and meet with Agnes at... he looked at his watch... nine-thirty Good. He had an hour.

  He dialed.

  “Hello?”

  Babies howling.

  “Puny! it’s ...”

  “Hey, Father! Can you hear ’em bawlin’? Law, these boys is a handful.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “But I love ’em, we all love ’em! Got to go, Father, you never seen s’ many dirty diapers. I never knowed boys make more dirty diapers than girls, did you ever hear that?”

  “Never did. May I stop by in a few days?”

  “Call me first, this house is upside down an’ backwards, you should’ve seen me packin’ Joe Joe’s lunch this mornin’, I put a stuffed bear in ’is lunch box and laid ‘is sandwich on th’ toy shelf. Guess I’ll eat it myself.

  “Oh, law, got to go.” Click.

  He pulled the keyboard toward him, and rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt.

 
 
 
 
 
 
  He selected a font. He clicked on a border. He chose a type size. He formatted the page. He scratched his head. He typed.

  He hit “print” and ordered twenty-five copies, then saw how good they looked, and duplicated the first order.

  He stuck the whole caboodle in a folder, and trotted to the kitchen, feeling upbeat. Though he was sales and service, not marketing, this effort nonetheless pleased him.

  He swung by the window seat where the easel was up, the watercolors were out, and February was toeing the mark. “What do you think?” He stuck a flyer under her nose.

  “I love it!”

  “It could have been, um, more exciting copy. But in the end, I decided to keep it simple.”

  “Always the best approach!” She gave him a laudatory kiss.

  What more did a man need in this world?

  He blew by Green Valley Baptist Church and gave the wayside pulpit message two thumbs up.

  COINCIDENCE IS WHEN GOD CHOOSES TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS.

  Agnes met him at the wall, where they stood looking down at clouds collected in the hollows after last night’s rain. Then, carrying the tea basket, and the folder under his arm, he walked with her to the nave.

  He saw it at once and drew in his breath.

  “Beautiful!” he exclaimed, hurrying ahead of her to the pulpit placed on the gospel side of the aisle.

  He smelled the familiar scent he associated only with churches and his mother’s parlor; the pungent wax that had been rubbed so carefully into the oak would long after release its sweet savor upon the air.

  She came behind him on her cane. “Clarence made it four years ago, when God renewed our conviction that He would send someone. It sat here only a short time, and then we took it to the schoolhouse where it would be safe.”

  The polished oak glowed in the light from the window above the altar. “Exquisite!” he said.

  “He brought it over on Sunday evening, and with great joy, we installed it. Do you like where it’s placed?”

  “Couldn’t like it better! What became of the original?”

  “It was stolen many years ago. The vandals who did this were not thieves, but desecrators of another stripe.”

  She pointed to the initials rudely carved into the left side of the pulpit. “Just there ... ‘JC loves CM.’ We were at first greatly distressed, then I realized what we might take it to signify: Jesus Christ loves Clarence Merton.”

  He laughed. “Lemons into lemonade, and gospel truth into the bargain! And look here! Such elaborate detailing. He did this, as well?”

  “Yes, with the old carving tools given him long ago.”

  He ran his fingers over the tooled oak, tracing the path the knife had taken before him.

  A crown of thorns.A heart.A dove.A dogwood blossom. And in the center of these, a cross.

  “Agnes...” That’s all he could find to say.

  She was moved, proud. “Yes.”

  “Let’s thank God!” Indeed, it was pray—or bust wide open.

  He took her hand in both of his, and they bowed their heads.

  “We praise You, Lord, we thank You, Lord, we bless You, Lord!

  “Thank You for the marvel and mystery of this place, for these thirty remarkable years of devotion, for Your unceasing encouragement to the hearts and spirits of Your servants, Agnes and Clarence, for Your marvelous gifts to Clarence of resourcefulness and creativity, and for Your gift to them both of a mighty perseverance in faith and prayer.

  “We thank You for this nave above the clouds in which Your holy name has been, and will continue to be, honored, praised, and glorified. Thank You for going ahead of us as we visit our neighbors, and cutting for each and every one a wide path to Holy Trinity. Draw whom You will to the tenderness of Your unconditional love, the sweetness of Your everlasting mercy, and the balm of Your unbounded forgiveness.

  “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

  “Amen,” they said together.

  “Well, then!” He felt ten feet tall, and growing. “I got the flyer done up; want to see it?”

  “I do!”

  He produced a copy from the folder. “And I brought tape so we can tape it to the door if someone’s not home, and thumbtacks for power poles and fence posts.”

  “You’ve thought of everything!” she said, sharing his excitement.

  Holy trinity Episcopal Church

  Wilson’s Ridge

  Est. 1899

  Will reopen its doors

  Sunday, May 1st

  At ten o’clock in the morning

  With the glad celebration of

  Morning Prayer and the Order of

  Holy Communion

  Come one, come all

  “‘The Order of Holy Communion’ should have gone on a line all its own,” he confessed. “I didn’t know how to set the thingamajig.”

  “It’s just right,” she said. “I like your border.”

  “Today, we can read the litany for Ash Wednesday, and finish our visitation list, and... what else?”

  “I’ll show you the cemetery.”

  “And in the morning, we’ll set out first thing, if that’s all right. I’ll pick you up at ten o’clock?”

  “I’ll be ready,” she said, happily, “with a thermos of tea.”

  “In the meantime, I’m mighty eager for the next installment of your story.”

  She looked tentative. “Do you really want to hear it? I’m not proud of all I’ll be bound to tell you, Father.”

  “I want to hear it.Very much.”

  In the front pew, she took the mugs from the basket, and he unscrewed the cap from the thermos and poured the steaming tea.

  Though the morning sun was warm on the flanks of the mountains, the nave was distinctly chilly. He kept his jacket on, and she had drawn her old cardigan closer about her thin frame.

  “I’d also like to hear about everyone who came on Sunday. Rooter and his grandmother ...”

  “Granny isn’t Rooter’s blood grandmother. She was a neighbor who took him in as a baby when his parents abandoned him.”

  His heart felt the blow of that.

  “Is there no end to it, Agnes?”

  “No, Father, there isn’t. The world is harsh and unforgiving, which is but one of the reasons you find me here today.”


  “Here?”

  “On this ridge, seemingly so far from the cruelty that everywhere assaults us if we let it.”

  “And Clarence?”

  “He’s happy here, very happy; this is where Clarence finds himself. He has a workshop in our yard and creates lovely things from wood, which he sells to a man who travels around to the mountain shops.” She lowered her eyes, modest. “Clarence has won many awards.”

  “Wonderful! I don’t doubt it. And tell me about Robert.”

  “Robert was in prison for eleven years; he lives alone, just down the road.”

  He saw the quickening of sorrow in her countenance.

  “Why was he in prison?”

  “He’s said to have killed a man.”

  “Do you know him well?”

  “No one knows him well.Yet I believe him innocent. He pled innocence all along. The man he was convicted of killing was his grandfather.”

  “I see a great hunger in his eyes. Robert wants to know God.”

  “Yes. He does. Though he may not know or even imagine that he does. I sense that he’s unbearably lonely.”

  He put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward in the pew and gazed without seeing at the pine floorboards. “And Lloyd?” He hoped for a brighter story about Lloyd.

  “He’s a good man. He, too, found the world hard, albeit instructive, and came home again, hoping to find all things golden, as in his boyhood.” Agnes laughed softly. “Of course, he’s been gravely disappointed!”

  He sat up and leaned back, comfortable on the wooden pew seat. “I hope to go home again one day; it’s been years since I visited Holly Springs in Mississippi. I think I’m afraid of... I’m not certain... finding it so changed, or worse, finding it all too familiar.”

  “I understand.”

  “But please, start where you left off.You and Jessie and Little Bertie endured the Great Baptizing. What happened then?”

  She smiled and sipped her tea, inhaling the heady scent of sassafras, undiluted on this occasion by the common grace of mint.