At Home in Mitford

by Jan Karon

  “And be quick about it!” she said, beaming.

  “Monday morning, first thing. Now, any considerations about the site for the nursing home? I admit to having my own strong opinion.”

  “Father,” she said soberly, “there isn’t but one site to consider.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Right down the road where the old church was.”

  “Precisely! My thinking exactly!”

  “Great minds work alike!” she said, clapping her small hands.

  “The view . . .”

  “Couldn’t be better.”

  “The proximity . . .”

  “Absolutely perfect!” she exclaimed.

  “And since the money you so graciously donated also covers the cost of land . . .”

  “That means the church gets paid for the land, and Lord’s Chapel can have a new roof!”

  Barnabas looked up at the odd pair, rocking in unison and laughing like children. He yawned hugely.

  “I confess I’ve been concerned about you, giving away all your father’s money. I just hope that . . . well, I hope that you haven’t strapped yourself.”

  She looked at him, he thought, almost coquettishly. “Father, what I gave away was only what belonged to Papa. There’s still Mama’s money, you know.”

  On Monday morning, Andrew Gregory left the church office with a large, flat package under his arm, just as Russell Jacks arrived.

  “Father,” said the sexton, making himself at home on the visitor’s bench, “my little granboy cain’t be took home to his mama yet, and they say school’s a startin’. He don’t want t’ go, it bein’ a strange place an’ all. I know it’s the law for ’im to go and it’s right for ’im to go, but I don’t hardly know what to do to git ’im started.”

  School! Well, of course, it was time for school.

  “Russell, he’ll need to be registered.” And, he thought, scrubbed from one end to the other.

  “You mean checked in and all?”

  “That’s right, and we’ll need to find out when and how. I believe sometime next week is the first day.”

  He picked up the phone and called the school superintendent. Then he called the police department.

  “Is it all right for two people to ride on a motor scooter over to Wesley?” he wanted to know.

  Extra helmet, he wrote on his notepad, as he hung up.

  “You may as well git the police back on the line,” said Russell.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because we ain’t reported that broke lock, yet. We’re supposed t’ report a thing like that, git it on th’ record.”

  Ah, thought Father Tim. Much ado about nothing. “I’ll take care of that, Russell. Right now, let’s get Dooley in school.”

  At 10:30, he left the office. He had managed to borrow another helmet, and set out for Wesley with an ecstatic Dooley Barlowe behind him on the Vespa.

  At two o’clock, they pulled up at the back door of the rectory, with a large plastic shopping bag strapped into the basket. They marched up the steps and stood looking through the screen at Puny, who was rolling dough for a chicken pie.

  “Here’s a boy who needs cleaning up,” said Father Tim. “And here are some clothes for him to wear.” He opened the screen door, let Dooley into the kitchen, and handed her their purchases. “I don’t know what to tell you to do, but I know you’re the one for the job.”

  Having said that, he left in some haste, leaving Puny holding the bag.

  “So I run a tub of hot water,” she said, giving her report, “an’ handed ’im a bar of soap and said git in there an’ soak.

  “Well, he went to sayin’ how I wasn’t ’is mama and couldn’t tell ’im what t’ do, so I yanked a knot in ’is tail.”

  He thought she looked very smug and self-satisfied. “And what did you do to yank this knot exactly?”

  “That’s for me t’ know and you t’ find out. Not meanin’ any disrespect, of course.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “So here’s what I done. While he was soakin’, I washed ’is overalls, and sent ’im home in ’em. I couldn’t see dressin’ ’im up in new clothes t’ go spillin’ somethin’ down th’ front, or settin’ in dog poop. I’ve seen Mr. Jacks’s place, and it ain’t th’ Taj Mahal.”

  “Well done.”

  “He was mad as fire about it, but Mr. Jacks is bringin’ ’im here in th’ mornin’ and he’s gittin’ dressed in ’is new stuff, and you can take ’im up to Miss Sadie’s. I’ve cut off th’ tags and pressed everything, an’ he can wear ’is new blue jeans with that green plaid shirt.”

  “You’re a marvel,” he said, sighing with relief.

  “What I am is give out, if you don’t mind. I declare, takin’ care of a preacher is the hardest work I ever done.”

  “It is?”

  “Trust me on this,” she said.

  “Miss Sadie, I’d like to present Mister Dooley Barlowe! Then what do you say?”

  “I say, how d’you do, pleased t’ meet you.”

  “Flawless!”

  The sun had come out, and though Dooley had wanted to go by motor scooter, they agreed to walk to Fernbank.

  The boy looked so different in his new jeans and plaid shirt, in his fresh socks and Keds, the rector could hardly believe his eyes. He had personally wet Dooley’s hair and brushed it, snipping straggly ends with the kitchen shears.

  When they reached Fernbank, Miss Sadie was on the porch, waving. A pitcher of lemonade and a plate of store-bought cookies sat on the wicker table.

  “Miss Sadie, I’d like to present Mister Barley Doolowe!”

  “You got your part wrong,” said Dooley.

  In the few days before school opened, Dooley earned $44.00. As agreed, he came by the church office and reported what he’d done.

  “I done this an’ that.”

  “What this and what that?”

  “I took out ’er ashes from an ol’ stove an’ put ’em on ’er ’zaleas. I mowed ’er yard, took goin’ over twice, it like to killed me, and hit a nest of yellow jackets.”

  “Aha.”

  “I got stung two times, pruned some ol’ shrubberies, an’ hauled stuff to a wash house. Then I run up an’ down them stairs carryin’ books to th’ attic.”

  “You pruned shrubbery?”

  “Granpaw taught me.”

  "What else?” the rector asked, genuinely interested.

  “I eat some chicken pie an’ drunk some lemonade an’ eat half a pound cake, and pooped in ’er toilet. Doorknob come off ’er toilet door, had t’ crawl out ’er window.”

  “Well done!”

  Dooley took the money from his overalls pocket and gave it to the rector, who counted out $40.00 and put it in a box for index cards.

  “This will go toward your bicycle. What color did you say you wanted?” He remembered perfectly well.

  “Red! Red as a fire engine!”

  “Excellent.” He took the remaining four dollars and handed it across his desk. “This is for you, just like we talked about. Next week, you can have four dollars again. This after-school work at Miss Sadie’s should get that bicycle sooner than we think.”

  This is too easy, he thought, musing to himself one September evening in his study. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he felt like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “Be glad you’ve never been in love,” said Emma.

  “Who says I haven’t been?”

  She stared over her half-glasses. “You mean you have?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  “I hate it when you talk common.” She didn’t know which she wanted more, to talk about Harold Newland, or her preacher being in love. She decided to do both. “How bad was it?”

  “How bad?”

  “Let me put it another way. How good was it, bein’ in love?”

  “How quickly you forget, Emma. I didn’t say I’d been in love.”

  “I should ha
ve known you’d double-talk me blue in the face. He wants me to meet his mother.”

  “Terrific.”

  “Terrific? How would you like meeting somebody’s mother who’s only five years older than you? I could die, I could just die.”

  “Don’t die. Secretary’s Day is coming around, and I’m planning to take you to Wesley for dinner.”

  She brightened. “Really?”

  “On my motor scooter.”

  “I’d give you a good kick if you weren’t a priest.”

  “That never stopped some people,” he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Golden Days

  During the eleven o’clock service, he looked up from the reading in Matthew and found a wife for Hoppy Harper. There, sitting on the gospel side, was one of the loveliest creatures he’d ever seen.

  His response was so immediate and overwhelming, he felt certain the inspiration had come from above. What to do about it, however, was not revealed.

  From his own observation, matchmaking was more than merely risky, it had proven to be downright disastrous.

  Throughout his career as a bachelor priest, people had tried to marry him off. Some parishes had been more intent upon this achievement than others, and the parish of Lord’s Chapel had been the worst of the lot.

  He had no sooner arrived in Mitford than three vestry members “ganged up,” as he called it, and arranged a tea in his honor at the home of a summer resident, Roberta Simpson.

  Roberta was so enormously rich that it was beyond his powers of comprehension to imagine the rumored sum.

  “You better hook this one,” somebody had the gall to say. “You could afford to give up preaching.”

  After several agonizing meetings, which were manipulated entirely without his knowledge or blessing, Roberta returned to Florida and married her stockbroker. When he met the man the following summer, he could barely resist the impulse to kiss him on both cheeks, after the European fashion.

  Then there had been the Becky Nelson Campaign. Becky was a petite and charming widow who played bridge around the clock and thought Wordsworth was a Dallas department store. He didn’t like to recall what a fiasco that had been. Talking to Becky Nelson had been precisely like talking to a rock.

  It took a full two years for his well-meaning parishioners to throw in the towel. “I give up,” he overheard someone declare at a church supper. He had celebrated this good news by eating a second helping of fudge pie.

  It was for these reasons, among others, that he refused to play Cupid to any poor, unsuspecting soul, and especially to Hoppy Harper, who had enough worries.

  On Monday, Emma was wreathed with smiles. “It worked.”

  “What worked?”

  “Your prayer about me meetin’ Harold’s mother.”

  “Never let me say I told you so.”

  She sat down and put her lunch bag in the bottom desk drawer. “Dottie Newland is a peck of fun. Why, we had such a good time, I think Harold felt left out!”

  “Tell me everything.”

  “We went to Dottie’s house and Harold grilled steaks. She made potato salad and deviled eggs and tea, and I brought green beans and a pound cake. I washed, Harold dried, and she put up. Guess what?”

  “What’s that?”

  “She’s six years older than me, not five.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Emma unlocked her ledger drawer. “Guess what else?”

  “Heaven only knows.”

  “I think I’ve found Hoppy Harper a wife.”

  “No!”

  “Did you see that new woman sittin’ on the gospel side Sunday?

  “I don’t know, I might have.”

  “Black hair, fair skin, real pretty. Red suit, little hat, black pumps.”

  “Aha.”

  “Widow. Just moved to Lilac Road, to her mother’s old summer house. Used to come here as a girl. Married a big engineer, bridges or something, who was rich as cream. Killed in a crash in one of those little planes.” She looked determined. “I’m goin’ to figure a way to get them together.”

  “Let me know how it works out,” he said pleasantly.

  In the afternoon, Russell Jacks swung the office door open and stepped in.

  “Got my granboy out workin’ them bat droppin’s in th’ flower beds,” he said with evident pride. “We’ll be havin’ us a second spurt of bloom around here.”

  Russell stood with his hat over his heart and inspected his shoes.

  “Is there something on your mind, Russell?”

  “Well, Father, school’s startin’ tomorrow, y’know. And I’d be . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’d be much obliged if . . .”

  “If what?”

  “If you’d go with ’im.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, if you’d go sign the papers and git ’im set and all like that.” Russell reached into a pocket on the front of his overalls and pulled out a worn ten-dollar bill. He laid it on the rector’s desk.

  “There’s the money t’ do it,” he said, as if that were the end of the matter.

  On Tuesday, he walked with Dooley up Main Street, crossed over Wisteria Lane, and turned right toward the school.

  “I’d rather be dead,” Dooley said, grimly.

  “Aha.”

  “Laid out in a casket.”

  “Is that right?”

  “With worms crawlin’ on me.”

  “I don’t know why. I always liked school.”

  “You was a sissy, is why.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I was a pretty tough guy.”

  “They’ll be wantin’ t’ fight me.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Them ol’ dump heads from where Granpaw lives at.”

  “I wouldn’t go expecting it, if I were you. That way, you might get it.”

  “They like to killed me when I come up here, but me ’n’ Granpaw run ’em off. I busted one ol’ boy’s nose, and they ain’t been back.”

  “Probably won’t come back.”

  “Yeah, but they’ll be waitin’ to knock th’ poop out of me at school.”

  “I expect those boys will keep busy getting the hang of things. They won’t be thinking about Dooley Barlowe.”

  “Huh! You don’t know how mean people do. Preachers don’t know real stuff.”

  “My friend, if that was a fact, I’d be a happy man.”

  They turned into the driveway of the old brick school, situated in a grove of oak, blue spruce, and maples showing a faint blush of scarlet. Children with bright clothes and book bags chattered along the sidewalks.

  “If you don’t mind,” said Dooley, “I’d thank you to walk up a ways, ’cause I don’t want nobody to think I’ve got a preacher follerin’ me around.”

  “It might do you some good in the matter that’s presently concerning you,” said the rector.

  In his study that evening, he wrote to Father Roland, in his large New Orleans parish.

  “just wanted you to know,” he typed with his forefingers, “that the sleepy life you insist i’m living is entirely a product of your 18th cent. romanticism. in two short days, i have run eight miles, washed an exceedingly filthy and enormous dog, counseled a woman in love with our postman, washed two grocery sacks full of collard greens, begun next Sunday’s sermon outline, prayed with the sick at our little hospital, read the entire lot of Wordsworth’s evening voluntaries (which I heartily recommend to you, my friend), attended a vestry meeting about the building site of our new nursing home, personally registered a boy in school, and worked a bucket of bat droppings into my floribunda beds.

  “now,” he concluded, “do let me know how you’re coming on.”

  “Lord have mercy!” said Puny on Wednesday. “There’s always somethin’ to cook around here. Some places you go, all you have to do is clean— it’s like a vacation. Come over here, and there’s a bushel of this, a sack of that, a peck of somethin’ or other.”

  “I
thought you liked to cook.” He was sitting at the kitchen counter, having a meatloaf sandwich and a glass of tea.

  “I like to cook,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest like armor plate, “but not for the entire Russian army.”

  “Aha.”

  “Besides, these collards ’ve smelled up the place till it’s more’n I can hardly stand.”

  “Next time, I’ll cook the collards and you wash Barnabas. How’s that?”

  “That dog of yours looks like somethin’ the cat drug in. Why you take th’ trouble to wash ’im is beyond me, when he just goes out and gets covered with mud again.”

  “It’s the same principle as making the bed. Why do it if you’re just going to get in it again? Or, for that matter, why wash the lunch dishes when you’re going to use them for supper?”

  “That’s not the same thing,” she said tartly, getting down on her hands and knees with the scrub brush. “Anyway, how did Dooley do on ’is first day?”

  “Black eye,” he said.

  “Oh, law! It’s that red hair. I was always pestered for bein’ redheaded. Did he whop ’im back?”

  “A left to the solar plexus and a right to the nose.”

  “Hot dog!” she said with evident satisfaction.

  “Puny, I know it’s none of my business how you conduct your chores here, but I do wish you wouldn’t clean the floor on your hands and knees.”

  “It’s the only way to do it right. My mama did it this way, her mama did it this way.” She brushed a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. “An’ I’m goin’ to do it this way.”

  Little Emma! he thought, finishing his tea.

  She looked at him, flushed and beaming. “Did he really get ’im good?”

  “I did not press him for the sordid details.” She cocked her head to one side. “Now, Father . . .”

  “Oh, well, then, Puny, all right!” He went to the sink and rinsed out his tea glass, so she couldn’t see him grinning like an idiot. “Yes! The answer is yes, he got him good.”

  “I’ll bake ’im a cake!” said Puny, scrubbing the worn tiles with renewed vigor.

  At the drugstore, he ran into Hoppy Harper, who was buying a bag of jelly beans.