by Jan Karon
“What’s a genius?” asked Sissie.
Wordless, Dovey offered her hand to him. He took it and held it in both of his. “Feeling any stronger?”
“I keep thinkin’ I will be, but I ain’t.”
“I’d like to take you to see my friend, Doctor Harper, in Mitford.”
“No, sir, I ain’t goin’ to another doctor.”
“Do you want to get well?”
“More’n anything.” Tears escaped along her cheeks. “I jis’ need time for th’ medicine t’ work.”
“You’ve been taking it a few months, Donny says.”
“I don’t want to go back ag‘in. They was pokin’ holes all over me an’ drawin’ blood. I one time fainted and would’ve fell out of th’ chair but th’ nurse grabbed ahold of me.”
“Sissie needs you.”
She withdrew her hand and stared at the ceiling.
“It may be hard to believe, Dovey, but God can use this time in your life.”
“I don’t see how.”
“We don’t need to see how, but to trust that He can, and will. Perhaps God is pruning you, Dovey. In the gospel of John, Jesus tells us He prunes every branch that bears fruit, that it might bear more fruit. Whatever His plan, God works in our lives for great good—if we ask Him to. Do you pray, Dovey?”
“All th’ time.”
“May I ask how you’re praying?”
“For God t’ let Mama come home.”
“I’m praying that God will reveal the mystery of your illness. But I don’t see how lying here can help Him do it.”
She burst into tears and turned toward the wall, her shoulders heaving with sobs.
“I have a plan,” he said, at last. “Will you trust God to help me carry it out?”
“I reckon,” she whispered.
“Will you?” he insisted.
She turned in the bed and faced him. “Yes,” she said. “Yes!”
There would be no viewing. Uncle Billy would be buried in the town cemetery next to the plot reserved long ago for Miss Rose Watson, nee Porter, by her long-deceased brother.
Betty Craig, God bless her, would care for Miss Rose until he figured out what else might be done, but Betty wouldn’t last long, he could tell by her voice.
He called Hope House again, pleading.
“We’re not miracle workers, Father.”
He was wasting his time, and theirs, too. He asked to be put through to the chaplain.
“Scott, Tim Kavanagh. I need a miracle.”
“Shoot.”
“Uncle Billy’s gone and Miss Rose can’t live alone. She has no relatives. Isn’t there a room ... ?”
“I hear we’re full up, Father.”
“But Miss Rose is the sister of Willard Porter, who built the town museum! Miss Sadie loved Willard Porter until her death, and I know she’d want Miss Rose to have a room at Hope House.” He was babbling like a brook.
“I hear you. I wish I could help. I’m really sorry, Father. I’ll commit to pray about this, and you can count on it.”
He was making people miserable, including himself.
He dialed Esther Cunningham, the tough, no-nonsense retired mayor who’d served the town for sixteen, maybe eighteen years. It was Esther who’d seen to it that Miss Rose and Uncle Billy had heating oil in their tank, and who’d negotiated a first-rate life-estate apartment in the Victorian-style mansion cum town museum across from the monument.
Esther Cunningham was an army tank, she was Tyrannosaurus rex, she was ...
Esther would help him out.
“This is Ray Cunnin‘ham, husband of Esther, father of four, gran’daddy of twenty-two, an’ great-gran’daddy of more’n I can count. We’re on th’ road again, prob’ly doin’ th’ Oregon Trail as we speak. Leave a message at th’ tone, an’ get out there an’ see America youself.” Beep.
He thought Sammy’s eyes beautiful, and full of expression.
“Thanks for your hard work, buddy. We’re glad to have you as our chief gardener.”
Sammy studied his paycheck; a mockingbird sang from the top branches of a pear tree.
“We’re going to Mitford on Friday. I’m conducting a funeral and attending one.You could come along if there’s something you’d like to do in town.”
“I’d like t’ shoot some pool.”
“No pool in Mitford. You’ll have to wait ’til we go to Wesley.”
Sammy shrugged.
“That’s a fine wage you’ve earned, we’re proud of you.” He shook the boy’s calloused hand. “Well done!”
Sammy looked at the ground.
Father Tim realized again that he had no idea what to do with a boy who’d been held at gunpoint by his own father. He suddenly felt his heart as leaden as Sammy’s appeared to be. “I’ll be glad to hold your earnings for you, if you’d like. That’s how Dooley got his first bicycle, by saving up.You could buy a used car or truck ...”
“Maybe,” said Sammy. He folded the check and put it in his shirt pocket.
Father Tim indicated the tiller. “Remember to run it at half throttle, not wide open, and go over the beds twice. Call me if you need me, I’ll be in the library.”
He spoke to Lloyd, who was working today from the scaffolding.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d help keep an eye on our boy while you’re out here.”
“None too happy, looks like.”
Maybe, just maybe, things would be brighter for Sammy when he got his peas and potatoes in. And certainly things would change when Dooley came home.
Father Tim looked at the date on his watch. He was definitely counting the days.
The loss of Uncle Billy signaled the end of an era. But an era of what? Something like innocence, he thought, poring over the burial service.
Uncle Billy’s rich deposit of memory had included a time when kith and kin went barefoot in summer and, if money was short, even in winter; when pies and cobblers were always made from scratch and berries were picked from the fields; when young boys set forth with a gun or a trap or a fishing pole and toted home a meal, proud as any man to provision the family table; when the late-night whistle of a train still stirred the imagination and haunted the soul ...
He sat at the desk in the Meadowgate library and considered the jokes Uncle Billy had diligently rounded up over the years, and told to one and all. Of the legions, he remembered only the census taker and gas stove jokes, the latter worthy, in his personal opinion, of the Clean Joke Hall of Fame, if there was such a thing.
It would certainly be an unusual addition to the 1928 prayer book office for the burial of the dead, but he was following his heart on this one.
He called Miss Rose and asked permission, not an easy task right there. Then he leafed through the Mitford phone book, jotting down numbers.
He felt the moist, quick breath on his face. Good grief! He sat up and looked at the clock.
Two in the morning.
“OK, OK, I’m coming,” he whispered to Barnabas. Mighty unusual behavior ...
He rolled out of bed and put on his shoes and threw on his robe and trooped down the stairs behind his obviously frantic dog.
When he opened the backdoor, Barnabas shot from the kitchen like a ball from a cannon, and vanished into the moonless night. He heard the occupants of the henhouse squawking to high heaven, and Willie’s dogs baying from their kennel.
“Barnabas!” he shouted in his pulpit voice.
The farm dogs were awake and also wanting outside. So be it. He opened the door and let the pack loose.
More barking and baying as the whole caboodle vanished into the black ink of early morning.
He’d acted hastily by not putting his dog on a leash, and also by letting the rest of the canines run wild in the night.
Del’s reportage had them pretty nervous these days; truth be told, he’d rather not know about the perils of country life. Ignorance is bliss! he thought, recalling one of his mother’s favorite proverbs.
He pou
red his first coffee of the morning and sat at the kitchen table—he and Cynthia had precisely an hour and a half of calm until Lloyd and Buster showed up.
“Could have been something he ate, God forbid, on our walk in the pasture.”
Cynthia looked contrite. “I have a confession to make.”
“Your priest will hear it, my child.”
“I gave him a dab of gravy last night with a bite of tenderloin.”
“Aha! The truth will out, Kavanagh!”
She covered her face with her hands in mock fear and peered at him through her fingers.
“Small bite?” he asked. “Big bite?”
“Big bite. He’s a big dog.”
“You know he’s supposed to have dry food only.”
She uncovered her face. “Right. And you’re supposed to have only sugar-free cherry pie.”
“Cynthia, Cynthia ...”
“Life is short, Timothy. For us, for dogs ...”
“True enough. But ...”
“We’ve denied him for weeks now, and he really wanted a bite. For old times’ sake, you might say. I guess it was a little too much for his system. So, sue me.”
“If it hadn’t been for that forbidden act, he wouldn’t have come home with this.” He displayed the evidence. “Of course, I have no idea what to make of it.”
“Then I’m forgiven?”
“Absolutely forgiven. But next time ...”
“Next time?”
He laughed. “You take him out at two in the morning!”
Small blue and white checks on a scrap of lightweight cotton. Shirt material.
As Barnabas snored under the table, Father Tim examined again the torn patch of cloth which his good dog had delivered on returning from his moonless run.
What if he carried forth this foolish notion and no one laughed? Would that dishonor the man they’d come to honor?
“Psalm fifteen,” he told the graveside gathering, “says ‘the cheerful heart hath a continual feast.’ And Proverbs seventeen twenty-two asserts that ‘a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.’
“Indeed, one of the translations of that proverb reads ‘a cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.’
“Bill Watson spent his life modeling a better way to live, a healthier way, really, by inviting us to share in a continual feast of laughter. Sadder even than the loss of this old friend is that most of us never really got it, never quite understood the sweet importance of this simple, yet profound ministry in which he faithfully persevered.
“Indeed, the quality I loved best about our good brother was his faithful perseverance.
“When the tide seemed to turn against loving, he loved anyway. When doing the wrong thing was far easier than doing the right thing, he did the right thing anyway. And when circumstances sought to prevail against laughter, he laughed anyway.
“I’m reminded of how an ardent cook loves us with her cooking or baking, just as Esther Bolick has loved so many with her orange marmalade cakes. In the same way, Uncle Billy loved us with his jokes. And oh, how he relished making us laugh, prayed to make us laugh! And we did.
“I hope you’ll pitch in with me to remember Bill Watson with a few of his favorite jokes. We have wept and we will weep again over the loss of his warm and loyal friendship. But I know he’s safe in the arms of our Lord, Jesus Christ, precisely where God promises that each of His children will be after death.
“This wondrous truth is something to joyfully celebrate. And I invite us to celebrate with laughter. May its glad music waft heavenward, expressing our heartfelt gratitude for the unique and tender gift of William ... Benfield ... Watson.”
He nodded to Old Man Mueller, who, only a few years ago, had regularly sat on the Porter place lawn with Uncle Billy and watched cars circle the monument.
The elderly man stood in his ancient jacket and best trousers and cleared his throat and looked around at the forty other souls gathered under the tent on this unseasonably hot day.
“Feller went to a doctor and told ’im what all was wrong.”
He sneezed, and dug a beleaguered handkerchief from his pants pocket.
“So, th’ doctor give ’im a whole lot of advice about how t’ git well.” He proceeded to blow his nose with considerable diligence.
“In a little bit, th’ feller started t’ leave an’ the’ doctor says, ‘Hold on! You ain’t paid me f‘r my advice.’ Feller says, ‘That’s right, b’cause I ain’t goin’ t’ take it!’ ”
Old Man Mueller sat down hard on the metal folding chair, under which his dog, Luther, was sleeping. A gentle breeze moved beneath the tent.
I’ve stepped in it now, thought Father Tim. Not a soul laughed—or for that matter, even smiled. He prayed silently as Percy Mosely rose and straightened the collar of his knit shirt.
Percy wished to the dickens he’d worn a jacket and tie, it hadn’t even occurred to him until he stood up here to make a fool of himself. But if he was going to be a fool, he wanted to be the best fool he could possibly be—for Uncle Billy’s sake. “Put your heart in it!” Father Tim had said.
“A deputy sheriff caught a tourist drivin’ too fast, don’t you know. Well, sir, he pulled th’ tourist over an’ said, ‘Where’re you from?’ Th’ tourist said, ‘Chicago.’ ‘Don’t try pullin’ that stuff on me,’ said th’ deputy. ‘Your license plate says Illinoise! ’”
Percy swayed slightly on his feet as a wave of sheer terror passed over him. Had he done it? Had he told the joke? His mind was a blank. He sat down.
In the back row, the mayor’s secretary giggled, but glanced at the coffin and clapped her hand over her mouth. The Mitford postmaster, whose mother lived in Illinois, chuckled.
The vicar crossed himself.
Solemn as a judge, J. C. Hogan rose to his feet and wiped his perspiring forehead with a handkerchief. He wouldn’t do this for just anybody, no way, but he’d do it for Uncle Billy. In his opinion, Uncle Billy was an out-and-out hero to have lived with that old crone for a hundred years.
The editor buttoned the suit jacket he’d just unbuttoned; if he was a drinking man, he’d have had a little shooter before this thing got rolling. And what was he supposed to do, anyway? Talk like Uncle Billy, or talk like himself? He decided to do a combo deal.
“Did you hear the one about the guy who hit his first golf ball and made a hole in one? Well, sir, he th‘owed that club down an’ stomped off, said, ‘Shoot, they ain’t nothin’ to this game, I quit!’”
The postmaster laughed out loud. The mayor’s secretary cackled like a laying hen. Avis Packard, seated in the corner by the tent pole, let go with what sounded like a guffaw.
The golfers in the crowd had been identified.
Exhausted, J.C. thumped into the metal chair.
The vicar felt a rivulet of sweat running down his back. And where was his own laughter? He had blabbed on and on about the consolations of laughter, and not a peep out of yours truly who’d concocted this notion in the first place.
Mule Skinner stood, nodded to the crowd, took a deep breath, and cleared his throat. This was his favorite Uncle Billy joke, hands down, and he was honored to tell it—if he could remember it. That was the trick. When he’d practiced it last night on Fancy, he’d left a gaping hole in the middle that made the punch line go south.
“A ol’ man and a ol’ woman was settin’ on th’ porch, don’t you know.”
Heads nodded. This was one of Uncle Billy’s classics.
“Th’ ol’ woman said, ‘You know what I’d like t’ have?’ Ol’ man said, ‘What’s ’at?’
“She says, ‘A big ol’ bowl of vaniller ice cream with choc’late sauce an’ nuts on top!’”
Uncle Billy, himself, couldn’t do it better! thought the vicar.
“He says,‘By jing, I’ll jis’ go down t’ th’ store an’ git us some.’ She says, ‘You better write that down or you’ll fergit it!‘ He says, ‘I ain’t goin’ t’ fergit it.’
“Went to th’ store, come back a good bit later with a paper sack. Hands it over, she looks in there, sees two ham san’wiches.”
Several people sat slightly forward on their folding chairs.
“She lifted th’ top off one of them san’wiches, says, ‘Dadgummit, I told you you’d fergit! I wanted mustard on mine!’”
The whole company roared with laughter, save Miss Rose, who sat stiff and frowning on the front row.
“That was my favorite Uncle Billy joke!” someone exclaimed.
Coot Hendrick stood for a moment then sat back down. He didn’t think he could go through with this. But he didn’t want to show disrespect to Uncle Billy’s memory.
He stood again, cleared his throat, scratched himself—and went for it.
“A farmer was haulin’ manure, don’t you know, an’ ‘is truck broke down in front of a mental institution. One of th’ patients, he leaned over th’ fence an’ said, ‘What’re you goin’ t’ do with that manure?’
“Farmer said, ‘I’m goin’ t’ put it on my strawberries.’
“Feller said, ‘We might be crazy, but we put whipped cream on ours!’”
Bingo! Laughter all around!
On the front row, Lew Boyd slapped his leg, a type of response the vicar knew Uncle Billy always valued.
Thank You, Lord!
Dr. Hoppy Harper unfolded himself from the metal chair like a carpenter’s ruler. He was the tallest one beneath the tent, which inspired a good deal of respect right off the bat.
The town doctor turned to those assembled.
“Uncle Billy told this joke quite a few years ago, when he and Miss Rose came to dinner at Father Tim’s rectory. I’ve never forgotten that evening, for lots of reasons, and especially because another of my favorite patients was then living—Miss Sadie Baxter.”
More nodding of heads. A few murmurs. Miss Sadie Baxter!
“Uncle Billy, I hope I don’t let you down.”
Hoppy shoved his hands into the sport coat he was wearing over his green scrubs.
“A fella wanted to learn to sky dive ... don’t you know. He goes to this school and he takes a few weeks of training, and pretty soon, it comes time to make his jump.