by Jan Karon
“Let the megachurches top that,” she said.
Willie Mullis was living up to something Father Tim’s grandmother used to say of the overharried—he looked like he was sent for and couldn’t go.
“Triplets.”
“Triplets?”
“Two ewes an’ a ram. All hale.”
“Wonderful! Thanks for the report.” It was nine o’clock at night, for Pete’s sake, he didn’t know if he could handle another lifetime event today. “Want to step in for some hot chocolate? It’s chilly this evening.”
Willie frowned. Why would anybody want to waste time drinking hot chocolate when they could come to the barn and witness something that didn’t happen every day of the week? Twins were pretty common. But triplets? He shook his head, disgusted with town people in general.
As Willie turned to leave, Father Tim felt Violet wrapping herself around his ankles. Suddenly, the proverbial lightbulb switched on. He looked at his wife; she looked at him.
“Violet and the triplets!” they whooped.
“I’ll grab my sketchbook!”
“Get Sammy while you’re at it!” he said. “I’ll get a flashlight. Hey, Willie! Wait up, we’re coming!”
Before he could round up the flashlight and don his boots, his wife had commandeered Sammy, raced to the coatrack by the door, found her wool socks and pulled them on, shoved her feet into her boots, stuffed her pajama bottoms therein, drawn her barn jacket on over her chenille robe, crammed a knit hat on her head, and was out the door with Sammy and Barnabas at her heels, the screen door slapping behind.
Lambs on long, wobbly legs.
If there was ever a sight to restore one’s hope, it was a lamb.
His wife was sitting in the straw of the triplets’ lambing pen, sketching her brains out while two of the newborns suckled with good appetite. Sammy looked on from outside the pen, awed.
“This, I presume,” he said to Cynthia, “knocks out March.”
“March, and possibly even April,” she said.
Willie came in with a bottle. “I had t’ pull that ’un yonder. ’E’s not takin’ dinner from ’is mama, an’ I got t’ go look about th’ rest of th’ lot.” Willie gave Father Tim a meaningful look.
“You want me to ... umm ...”
“Yessir.”
The vicar took the bottle and sat in the straw beside Barnabas. “Hand him over here, get me started. I’m new at this.”
Willie picked up the lamb and forked it over; it was wet and sticky from the birth sac, and its iodine-treated umbilical cord was still bloody.
With a little coaxing, the lamb found the nipple of the bottle and nursed with surprising energy.
Father Tim leaned back against the boards of the lambing pen, grinning. His new barn jacket had at last been broken in.
“Close up the house,” said Hal. “You don’t need the aggravation of a chimney being rebuilt under your noses. Willie can look after things.”
“No, no, we’d like to stay on. I confess we’ve gotten pretty comfortable here and we’re looking forward to spending the summer with Dooley. We hope we have years yet to be at home in Mitford.”
“Whatever suits you, old friend. Glad to hear Sammy showed up; that’s four out of five, thanks be to God!”
As the usual static came on the line, Father Tim hung up, relieved.
Somehow, he and Cynthia had gotten rooted into Meadowgate like turnips; yanking it all up and moving back to Wisteria Lane would be a job of no mean proportion. Besides, he wanted to watch the lambs grow up, and eat okra and tomatoes from the alluvial soil of a valley garden.
“Okra!” he said aloud, rhapsodic.
His wife stopped squinting at her sketchbook and squinted at him. “Okra?”
“Fried, whenever possible.”
“Certainly not stewed!” she said, meaning it.
During a light spring rain on Wednesday, the UPS driver screeched into the driveway and, unable to summon anyone to the backdoor of the farmhouse, used a dolly to transport twenty boxes to the rear steps. Seeing no way around the onerous task of off-loading them onto the porch, he sighed deeply and went to work.
Holy Trinity’s kneelers had arrived.
Shortly afterward, the driver of a competitive delivery service huffed a weighty carton onto the front porch and sprinted to the truck before anyone could ask him to set it in the front hall.
Holy Trinity’s candles, Host box, altar vases, chalice, paten, hymn board, and altar sticks had reached their destination.
CHAPTER TEN
So Shall Ye Reap
Twins.
A single.
A single.
Twins.
A single.
Twins.
Twins.
A single.
At Meadowgate Farm, lambs were arriving as frequently as flights into Atlanta.
As if fitted with coils, they sprang around the barn and over the pasture, doing what the English long ago defined as gamboling.
“Also known as frisking,” said his wife, hunkered down with a camera.
“How many rolls so far?”
“Only eleven.”
“Ah yes, but shooting them is one thing, and having them developed is another.”
“In my calling, dearest, all tax deductible!”
Satisfied ewes lay about the greening pasture in fleecy mounds, chewing their cud. Here and there, a mistaken lamb gave a ewe’s udder a great, upheaving nudge and was scolded off to its own mother.
It was the time of year at Meadowgate when cars and trucks slowed along the state road. Whole families occasionally piled out of their vehicles to stand at the fence and marvel.
Father Tim threw up his hand to Willie, who was heading down the pasture with his walking stick. Willie waved back.
Using her zoom lens, Cynthia shot several frames of their good shepherd, who, due to the lambing and calving season, was looking decidedly overworked. Indeed, in the Meadowgate pasture to the north, four calves had recently been born, with six more expected.
“He needs the help of a wife, poor soul.”
“He has the neighbor boy,” said Father Tim.
“Yes, but does the neighbor boy have a hot meal on the table when Willie straggles in from the barn?”
“You have a point.”
“We’ll send him an apple pie. I found two in the freezer, I’ll pop both in the oven this afternoon; the kitchen will smell wonderful.”
“One for Willie and one for Sammy?”
“Precisely You and I will feast merely on the aroma.”
“Works for me,” he said.
He looked up and saw something moving at a pace along the brow of the hill. Guineas. The entire flock. Chasing madly after something white ... aha!
“Kavanagh, remember one of the calendar pictures we talked about—Violet chasing the guineas?”
“I’m planning that for the September page.”
The caravan raced down the hill at break-neck speed and disappeared around the barn.
“You may need to revise it slightly.”
Even with the attentions of the Mitford Hospital staff, Uncle Billy Watson wasn’t improving. Now stuck with cooking for Miss Rose and checking on her three times daily, Betty Craig was desperate; and no, there was no opening at Hope House until . . . “well, you know,” said the director of admissions.
Though he hadn’t the faintest idea what to do, he felt he must do something.
“Lloyd,” he said, shaking the rough, ham-sized hand of the low-bidding mason. “Welcome to Meadowgate.”
“I’ll take care of some prep work today, an’ startin’ tomorrow I’ll have a helper. We’ll do you a good job,” said Lloyd.
Unlike some poor saps who were promised such a thing by a contractor, the vicar was relieved to know he could take Lloyd’s promise as the gospel truth.
“Let’s play a game,” he said to his wife.
“I love games!”
“What don’t you love, Kavanagh?”
&n
bsp; “Jeans without Lycra, lug soles on barn shoes, age spots . . .”
“Ditto.”
“And,” she continued, “any sitcom more recent than M★A★S★H.”
“So. Let’s say someone was working with you in the house two days a week. Now that you have the calendar to contend with, would that bother you?”
“Not if they did their work and let me do mine. Why?”
“End of game,” he said.
“Who won?”
“We both won,” he said. “Trust me.”
“Lily?” he whispered into the phone.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Father Tim,” he said, still whispering.
“Why are you whisperin’?”
“I don’t want my wife to hear.”
“Why, shame on you! I’ve heard of preachers like you!”
“Wait, no! It’s nothing like that. I’m trying to hire you to help Mrs. Kavanagh. It’s sort of a surprise.”
Skeptical silence.
“Two days a week,” he said.
“Doin’ what?”
“Cooking and cleaning.”
“For how many?”
“Three. This summer, there’ll be four.”
“I cain’t take any Saturday work; that’s when I do parties.”
“Of course.”
“An’ no Friday work, that’s when I get ready t’ do a party.”
“Fine. Fine.”
“An’ no Monday work, that’s when I get over doin’ a party.”
“Ah.” He sat down.
“Sometimes I’d have to send Del or even Vi‘let in m’ place.”
“I thought Violet was married to somebody in a brick house and . . .”
“That’s Arbutus.”
“Of course.”
“Del can’t cook t’ save ’er life, but mama says she cleans like a Turk.”
“Like a Turk . . . what does that mean, exactly?”
“Upends y’r chairs on y’r table; pulls th’ furniture out from th’ walls; beats y’r rugs with a paddle. Don’t miss a trick.”
He was having a sinking spell. “Can you come?”
“I guess I ought t’ tell you Vi’let sings as she works. I hope you don’t mind singin’. She’s very popular with ever’body.”
“I’m sure!”
“Lite Country, she calls it.”
“Can you do it?”
“When would I start?”
“Immediately. Right away. Tomorrow.”
“How long would this job last?”
“’Til sometime in January, when the owners of Meadowgate return.”
“I have reg’lars, y’ know. I’d have t’ make other arrangements, which can be a heap of trouble.”
“I understand,” he said. “And by the way, Mrs. Kavanagh . . .”
“She tol’ me to call ’er Cynthia.”
“Cynthia ... needs a lot of concentration to do her work. She can’t be disturbed.”
Long pause. Background music from a radio . . .
“I jis’ prayed about it,” said Lily, “but I didn’t get a answer. Zip. Zero.”
“How long do you think it might take ... to get an answer?”
“You oughta know better’n me, you’re th’ preacher.”
He sighed; Puny Bradshaw Guthrie had spoiled him for all others. “Why don’t we just . . . talk later?” A brilliant idea.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, I think I’m gettin’ a answer. Hold on.”
Longer pause. The deejay was singing along.
“I can do it!” she whooped. “Ever’ Wednesday an’ Thursday!”
“Wonderful! Terrific!”
“I’ll be there Wednesday mornin’ at eight o’clock. I bring m’ own cleanin’ rags an’ sweet tea, an’ I have a allergy to cats so I’ll be wearin’ a mask.”
“A mask. Right. Anything else?”
“I sign out at three o’clock, sharp.”
“Perfect.”
She giggled. “You can stop whisperin’ now.”
“It’s all yours,” he told Sammy.
He stood inside the rusted gate with Sammy and surveyed the sun-bathed vegetable garden. Marge once said this patch of ground had been continuously worked for more than a century, with cow, sheep, and chicken manure, at least during their tenure, being the principal fertilizers.
“That g-green stuff’s asparagus.”
Sammy lowered the bill on his ball cap, as his eyes roved the ruin of winter. He picked up a faded seed packet. “Beets was here. Maybe c-c-carrots an’ onions over there.”
“Pole beans grew on that trellis,” said Father Tim. “I picked a hatful two years ago.”
“Prob’ly t-taters here.” Sammy kicked at the mounded earth. “An’ t’maters over yonder.”
“Think we’ll have any room for squash?”
“What kind?” asked Sammy.
“Yellow.”
“Yep. How ’bout watermelons?”
“I don’t know. Can you grow watermelons in the mountains? I believe they need sandy soil.”
“You c’n g-git sand at a nurs’ry.”
“That’s the spirit! As ye sow, so shall ye reap!”
“I’d put c-corn in here, ‘bout f-four or five rows. And put y’r okra in next to th’ c-corn.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I learned it offa Lon; he g-grows ever‘thing he eats. If we’re goin’ t’ git seeds an’ plants an’ all, we need t’ b-bust ass.”
“We’ll make a run to Wesley tomorrow.” Sammy’s arms were definitely longer than the sleeves in Dooley’s sweat shirt. They’d hit the department store while they were at it, and a haircut wouldn’t hurt matters, either.
“About the fertilizer. Mrs. Owen says they use sheep, cow, and chicken manure.”
“That’ll work.”
“The problem is—you have to collect it.”
“You mean—git it out of th’ f-field?”
“Right.”
“Is it rotted?”
“I don’t know. You’ll need to work with Willie on that. A good wheelbarrow, a pitchfork, a shovel, and you’re in business.”
Sammy adjusted his ball cap.
“Can you use a tiller?”
“I don’ know; I ain’t never used one.”
He clapped Sammy on the back. “I’ll show you.”
Two robins swooped across the garden. The emerging leaves of a fence-climbing trumpet vine trembled in the morning breeze.
Though Sammy seldom allowed his face to register his feelings, his eyes weren’t under such strict command. Father Tim saw that this garden would be more than food for their table; it would be food for Sammy Barlowe’s soul.
“Willie, how’s it going?”
Willie held out two egg cartons. “Fourteen. This here carton’s five short.”
“Just fourteen?” He’d promised a dozen to Emma, a dozen to Percy, a dozen to Esther . . .
“The hens must be on strike.”
“Looks like.”
“They’re on their laying mash?”
“Same as ever.”
“Snakes?”
“Too early.”
“Right. Well! I’m town folk, you know. Thank you, Willie. Anything new at the barn?”
“Two singles.”
“Almost done, then.”
“Yessir. An’ thank y’r missus f’r th’ pie. I et it at one settin’.”
“Good! My wife will love hearing that!”
He hated to give away less than a full carton. Percy would have to wait.
With Andrew’s cordial permission, he and Sammy dug through the Plymouth looking for, as he told Sammy, a manila envelope. At scarcely more than four feet tall, and weighing less than ninety pounds, Miss Sadie wouldn’t have had the strength to pull the lower seat out and stash something behind it, but they pulled it out anyway.
They felt around behind the dashboard; they looked in the glove compartment; they examined the roof liner as best as they could without removing it. They opened the trunk and rifled through a rusted green toolbox, they looked under the floor mats, and even inspected the ashtrays.
“You c-couldn’t git a big envelope in them little bitty ashtrays,” said Sammy.
“True!” he agreed.
Their labors, he knew, were rudimentary. All the places they looked would have been the places Miss Sadie could easily access, but Miss Sadie was no dummy. She wouldn’t have hidden nine thousand dollars where any Tom, Dick, or Harry could stumble across it.