Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  “A choir of two?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “You sing pretty good, yourself.”

  “I never thought so, but thank you.”

  “You could come an’ stand with us. So, then we’d have three up front an’ Miss Martha in back—she totally loses ’er key now an’ ag‘in but she’s strong. An’ I guess with us in th’ front an’ her in th’ back, that’d ... hold up th’ middle!”

  Violet giggled; his heart lifted. “Well said!”

  A choir had to start somewhere.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  He stepped down to the mailbox, then returned to the library, shutting the door against the chink, chink, chink of the masons’ trowels in the kitchen chimney and the video in the parlor.

  Invitation to the annual barbecue of the electrical co-op. Bill from The Local. Credit card jive. Notice of a fish fry at Farmer’s fire hall.

  Dear Father Kavanagah,

  Thank you for the Bibles. Everybody was so happy to have one of their own. We are reading in the gospel of John and studying where Jesus says in chapter 14--if a man love me, He will keep my words and my Father will love him and We will come unto Him and make our abode with him.

  It is a comfort to know that God hisself will come through these prison walls and set down with us in our cell which is our abode and be with each one of His incarcerated children. That is a thrilling thing and sometimes hard to believe but I have felt his presence and know it is true.

  I don’t hardly know if I should write this, but I have been working real hard to earn time off of my sentence. It looks like I might be coming home soon but I don’t know yet so don’t please say nothing to Donny or Dovey or nobody else. My crime was a Class B2 feleny, and I have kep a clean record during my time of incarceration and my sentence might could be cut from ten years to seven years.

  I will appreciate it if you will pray for them to be able to do this. I will let you know. Please pray for Lucy in our Bible study she has a really bad heart and for Sue and Lonnie. Thank you and God bless you.

  Sincerely,

  Ruby Luster

  #10765L

  “So, what does ‘e do in there all day? You f’rgot.”

  He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, so he could look into her inquisitive eyes. “He guides and directs us, and helps us make decisions, if we ask Him. He gives us a sense of belonging.”

  “What is belongin’?”

  “Being important to someone, feeling at home somewhere. Because when He lives in our hearts, we belong to Him, and He is our home.”

  This was hard, he thought.

  She placed her hand over her heart. “He ain’t doin’ nothin’ but goin’ ka-bump, ka-bump.”

  “That’s your heart pumping blood through your body so you can live and breathe and walk and talk and watch videos and eat peanut butter. God lives in our hearts as a spirit. We can tell Him everything, and ask Him anything. He wants to help us because He loves us.”

  “How come ’e loves us?”

  “One reason is because He made us.”

  “I come out of m’ mama’s belly. She said her’n’ m’ daddy made me.”

  He took her hand. “Let’s go up and see Cynthia,” he said.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, son.” He laid his book aside. “Sit down awhile.”

  Dooley sat in the window seat next to the library fireplace.

  “Looks like your Jeep cleaned up pretty good.”

  Dooley shrugged.

  “But you can’t be hauling the beautiful Miss Lace Harper around in a Wrangler with a busted door. Tell you what. We hardly use the Mustang since we came out here. Why don’t you drive it ’til your new truck comes in?”

  “That’d be great. Really great.” Dooley was beaming. “Thanks.”

  “It has a few idiosyncrasies; I’ll have to show you.”

  “Sammy and I figured my truck comes in about the same time as his. He said he’ll get potatoes, cherry tomatoes, squash, all kinds of stuff around mid-July. Very cool.”

  “I’m looking out for my first tomato sandwich. By the way, be careful coming home tonight; the roads are winding, as you know.”

  “Right.”

  “There’s that hairpin curve just after the FARMER sign.”

  Dooley patted his foot.

  “And that stretch by the old dairy farm—three people have ...”

  “Got it, Dad.”

  “So when will we see Lace?”

  “I’m taking her for Mexican tonight in Wesley. Thought we’d eat with you all tomorrow night, if that’s OK. She really likes it out here.”

  “Steak. Fries. Salad.”

  “No avocado.”

  “And chocolate pie, if memory serves me correctly.”

  “Right.” Dooley grinned. “I took Sammy down to Holding yesterday, to his old pool hall. He’s great. Really great. He said you saw him shoot a couple of games in Wesley.”

  “I did. And I’ve been looking around on the Internet at pro pool associations. Maybe there’s a future for him in doing what he loves.”

  “When I’m working and have some money, I’m going to buy him a pool table. And, you know, get his teeth fixed.”

  “I mentioned that once; you’ll have to hog-tie him to get him to the dentist. It’ll take two or three strong men.”

  Dooley laughed.

  “Of course, I’d like to see him get some education. But that will take more than two or three strong men. Remember what we went through to get you into prep school?”

  “I was ballistic.”

  “To put it mildly.”

  “Do you think you and Cynthia could ... you know, keep him?”

  “We’ve talked about that. We’re going to Ireland next year, but I’m sure we could work something out. The deal is, he must respect the rules of the house, and the people in it. Without that, there is no deal.”

  “Right.” Dooley was reflective. “That’s hard. He’s really mad about a lot of stuff in his life.”

  “The option of living on his own, at his age, is not good. Does he know that?”

  “He d
oes. He didn’t actually say it, but I think he’s scared to do it. He left a couple of times before and got mixed up with some really rough guys. That’s how he got the scar.”

  “I thought maybe that happened ... at home.”

  Dooley’s face grew hard. “Worse things happened at th’ trailer.”

  “How’s Bo?”

  “Doing OK. I hate to see us waste time like this; she’s ...”

  Better not go there, he thought. “How are you fixed for cash?”

  “I have a few bucks. I don’t get a check from the clinic ’til next Friday.”

  Father Tim stood and pulled out his wallet. He had to tell Dooley. And soon. He could hardly bear the burden of it any longer. But the time would have to be right; he was waiting for the go-ahead ...

  “Remember the first twenty I ever gave you?”

  “It was my birthday.”

  “You said you weren’t going to spend it, you were going to just walk around with it in your pocket.” Where had the time gone? It seemed only yesterday ... He gave Dooley five twenties. “Make it stretch, son.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dooley folded the money and put it in the pocket of his khakis. “Thanks a lot.”

  Dooley headed for the door.

  “Doctor Kavanagh.”

  Dooley hesitated a moment, then looked around, the light from the window gleaming on his red hair.

  “We’re proud of you.”

  He saw his boy try to speak, but it didn’t work; he turned and fled along the hall.

  On Saturday morning, he and Barnabas piled into the truck with the rhinoceros horn lamp, a stack of computer-generated pew bulletins, three dozen eggs, and a UPS package, and drove to Wilson’s Ridge.

  He tore open the package, unbaled the sheet music, and thumped it onto the piano bench. Sparkle would come early tomorrow and get things organized.

  He sang the communion hymn as he went about the nave, straightening this, adjusting that.

  “Just as I am, without one plea ...”

  He dipped his finger in the altar vases.Water. Agnes had been here.

  “But that thy blood was shed for me ...”

  The Baptists among them would have no trouble with this one!

  “And that thou bidd’st me come to thee ...”

  Someone sang the last line with him.

  “O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”

  “Agnes! Good morning to you!”

  Barnabas crawled from beneath the front pew, and lumbered up the aisle.

  “Good morning, Father! Good morning, Barnabas! Clarence and I are just coming in with something for the altar vases.”

  She carried a basket of greenery and blooms in her left hand, and managed her cane with the other. Clarence followed with a fistful of dried grapevines, hailing his vicar with a hand sign.

  His love for his parish above the clouds flooded his heart with a sudden and startling force. He was in his place, as Wordsworth had enjoined him to be.

  And he was content.

  Grapevine spiraled up from the altar bouquets of cow parsnip, sweet Cicely, and mountain laurel; when Clarence left, they sat in the front pew, approving their labors.

  “The tall white flower?” he asked.

  “Osmorbiza claytonii. Sweet Cicely. The roots smell and taste like licorice, or anise. The species name, claytonii, honors John Clayton, who was an eighteenth-century botanist from Virginia.”

  “You know about all the flowers in these mountains?”

  “Many, but never all! See the tall beauty that looks a bit like Queen Anne’s lace? Cow parsnip, or Heracleum lanatum. You can cook and dry the roots and use it as a salt substitute. But one must never confuse it with water hemlock, which can be deadly.”

  “It’s a jungle out there,” he said. He gazed at the altar vases a moment longer, then turned to her. “Grace Monroe had taught Clarence to handle rare Staffordshire ...”

  She smiled. “You’re certainly not troubled by forgetfulness, Father.

  “We lived with Grace for eleven years; I’d gone to work at the Chicago Public Library. When he was six, I entered Clarence in a school for the deaf. Except for his woodworking lessons, he was miserable, so unhappy. He felt confined, somehow, and never free as a child should be. I was saving every penny I possibly could, and when Grace died, we came home to Wilson’s Ridge and our schoolhouse.

  “It was the most extraordinary transformation you can imagine. Clarence loved these mountains; it seemed the city had been but a dream. He flourished in every way—his color improved, his imagination took wing, he was happy. He learned the names of trees, and the grain of their wood, and carved his first bird when he was twelve years old.”

  “And you? How did you fare in coming home?”

  “I told those who asked that Clarence’s father had died before Clarence was born and that I’d resumed my maiden name. That’s what I told Clarence, also. I struggled with telling my son such a terrible lie. But it was best. It was best. I may be wrong, but I don’t think anyone on the ridge knew the truth.”

  He heard their Pavarotti singing by the door.

  “For many months, I sat each day in this very pew and prayed, never thinking much about the rain coming in, and the mice and the squirrels and the birds. Holy Trinity had been abandoned by the church, though oddly, never deconsecrated, and I felt I was simply borrowing, if you will, what was left of it.

  “It was some time before God spoke to my heart, using the very words He’d spoken to St. Francis.

  “ ‘Rebuild my church,’ He said, ‘which, as you see, is in ruins.’

  “I was still young then, and vigorous, and I began at once. In the beginning, my labor was a penance. For a time, it was a duty. Then—it became a joy.

  “Soon, Clarence joined me and we did it together, as unto the Lord. It never occurred to us that we should ask money of anyone, or help of any kind. He had given us an assignment, a ministry; we did what we did in obedience to Him, it was a wonderful way to thank Him for all He’d done for us.

  “Clarence’s faith is deep, Father, perhaps far deeper than mine. He absolutely blossomed as he repaired the roof and replaced the water-logged floorboards, and restored the altar railing. And indeed, God blessed his woodworking income in such a way that we no longer had to scrape and sacrifice for every nail—a blessing which we sometimes oddly regretted, I must say, for the scraping had been a blessing all its own.

  “Thus we worked on, year after year. My father died and left his estate to me, though I can’t say I deserved a penny of it. And then one day, Clarence and I began to pray that He would send someone to lead us, to draw us together again on the ridge-as a family.

  “Many believe that seclusion of our sort is an offense, that we are to go out boldly, and serve Him in the great fray of the world. But these coves and hollows are a world, too, Father. And we’re honored that He chose us to keep His church from falling to ruin-for such a time as this.

  “That is my story.” Agnes drew a long breath, and sighed with relief. “I know you must be grateful to have it end, but not so grateful as I to you, for having listened. You’re the only one who has ever heard it through.”

  “He blessed with you a good-hearted and wonderful son. Out of what you experienced as wrong, He made right—as He always does.”

  “I suppose I should tell you who ...”

  “No,” he said. “I know only that you attended the funeral of Cleveland Prichard.”

  She looked at him directly, with courage; her eyes were very blue.

  “And that,” he assured her, “is all we need ever say.”

  Jubal had stripped the winter tarpaulin from his derelict sofa and was sitting on the porch as Father Tim wheeled into the yard.

  He parked the truck under a shade tree and gave Barnabas a leather chew for entertainment, then hopped down and collected a jar of tea and carton of eggs from behind the driver’s seat.

  Jubal threw up his hand. “Leave y’r animal in y’r vehicle!”

&
nbsp; Father Tim heaved the lamp from the truck bed and set off for the porch. Even from a distance, he perceived an odd movement beneath Jubal’s beard.

  He thumped his plunder onto a bench. “Top of the day, Jubal!”

  “What in th’ nation ... ?”

  Jubal eyed the lamp with suspicion, if not downright disgust.

  “It’s a lamp! From the horn of a rhinoceros! I know how you like things from nature.”

  “Th’ horn of a what?”

  “A rhinoceros.”

  “I never seed nothin’ like it; hit’s ugly as homemade sin.”

  “Most sin is homemade, I’ll grant you that, but this will give a cheering light in your place. Shall we step inside and plug it in?” He was personally pretty excited about his gift, albeit pass-along.

  “Plug it in? I hain’t got but two or three places f’r pluggin’ in. M’ hot plate’s in one, m’ shaver’s in another’n ...”

  “Your shaver? But you don’t shave.”

  “Hit’s ready t’ go if ever I git th’ notion. Where’s Miss Agnes at?”

  “She sends her best wishes, and a jar of tea.”

  “She’s done f‘rgot me.” Jubal looked bereft. “I hain’t seed ’er in a coon’s age.”

  “If you were in church on Sunday, you’d see her every week.”

  Jubal glared from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Looky there! I knowed ye’d be a-tryin’ t’ hornswoggle me; I knowed it th’ minute I laid eyes on ye!”

  “I’m not trying any such thing, just stating fact. And here’s the Brown Betties I promised.”

  Jubal opened the carton, looking suddenly pleased. “Well, set down, why don’t ye? Don’t keep a-standin’ up, I declare, ye’d wear a man out.”

  The vicar sat on the other end of a Naugahyde sofa that had been generously patched with duct tape. “Jubal, what on earth is under your shirt?” Something was definitely moving around in there.