At Home in Mitford

by Jan Karon

  “I overdose on these about twice a week,” the doctor said. “I eat the green first.”

  The rector sighed in mock despair. “You sure cut into my fun. I haven’t had a Little Debbie since Easter.”

  “The trouble with you,” said Hoppy, “is that Little Debbies were the only fun you were having.”

  Hoppy paid for his jelly beans and opened the bag at once, searching for a green. “So when are you going on vacation?”

  If Hoppy Harper had asked him that once, he had asked him that a hundred times, he thought. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he’d never been good at arranging his own recreation. The trip to Cambridge had been the best of examples.

  While the English weather abandoned its usual caprice and offered glorious balm and sunshine, he’d found himself hopelessly plunged into research that confined him for days to the musty, fan-vaulted library.

  “There are racehorses,” a bishop once told him, “and there are plow horses, and the pulpit can make fit use of both kinds.”

  He didn’t try to deceive himself. In his own opinion, he was a plow horse. He set his course at one end of the field, then plowed to the other and back again.

  In any case, he felt himself becoming an increasingly dry old crust, and his doctor was profoundly right about his lack of anything even remotely resembling fun.

  Autumn drew on in Mitford, and one after another, the golden days were illumined with changing light.

  New wildflowers appeared in the hedges and fields. Whole acres were massed with goldenrod and fleabane. Wild phlox, long escaped from neat gardens, perfumed every roadside. And here and there, milkweed put forth its fat pods, laden with a filament as fine as silk.

  There were those who were ecstatic with the crisp new days of autumn and the occasional scent of woodsmoke on the air. And there were those who were loathe to let summer go, saying it had been “the sweetest summer out of heaven,” or “the best in many years.”

  But no one could hold on to summer once the stately row of Lilac Road maples began to turn scarlet and gold. The row began its march across the front of the old Porter place, skipped over Main Street and the war monument to the town hall, paraded in front of First Baptist, lined up along the rear of Winnie Ivey’s small cottage, and ended in a vibrant blaze of color at Little Mitford Creek.

  When this show began, even the summer diehards, who were by then few enough in number to be counted on the fingers of one hand, gave up and welcomed the great spectacle of a mountain autumn.

  “It is quite a treasure trove,” Andrew Gregory told the rector. “Primitive, yes, but with great insight, great depth. There’s a winsome quality about them, yet they have surprising polish, too. I’d like to show you how they’re looking in the frames.”

  “I’ll drop by around noon.”

  “If arthritis hadn’t caught up with him, who knows what he might have done?”

  “And who knows what was lost when Miss Rose set fire to his ink sketches, because he ate her portion of the pickle relish?”

  Both men shook their heads with regret.

  “I’m afraid our parish hall won’t hold a great many people. Maybe we should have the showing in the town hall.”

  “The mildew will keep the crowd away,” Andrew wisely reminded him.

  “You’re right, of course. Well, then, what about the Oxford Antique Shop?”

  “Possibly,” Andrew said, thoughtfully. “Possibly. With a little mulled wine, sometime in October?”

  “Excellent!”

  “Of course, we could sell the whole lot without the trouble of hanging them. Miss Sadie loves art, she’d be good for at least one. And Esther Cunningham would very likely take two for the town hall.”

  “Hoppy Harper, probably two.”

  “And your veterinarian friend and his wife?”

  “One or two, certainly.”

  “I’ll have a half dozen myself, out of that series he did of the valley.”

  “How many drawings are there? I keep forgetting the number.”

  “Forty-three, done over a period of maybe fifteen or twenty years. It’s fairly easy to put them in sequential order, his early woodcocks look like mourning doves. And I mistook one of his first bird dogs for a deer.”

  They laughed agreeably. It gave them much satisfaction that Uncle Billy was not merely an affable, rheumatic village indigent, but a gifted artist.

  “I’ll have one for my study, of course, and one for Walter and Katherine for Christmas.”

  Andrew’s face lighted up with his well-known smile. “We’ve sat right here and sold a couple of dozen!” He took a small, black book from the breast pocket of his jacket and consulted it. “Well, then! How about Saturday, October twentieth, around four o’clock in the afternoon? At the Oxford! I’ll have a new shipment from England and a container of books from a Northamptonshire manor house. I’m told Beatrix Potter visited there as a child and scribbled throughout two volumes on moles.”

  The rector laughed. “I’m astounded that two volumes on moles even exist! Though of course, when they tunnel under my back lawn, I have volumes to say on the subject myself.”

  As Andrew stood up to go, the rector couldn’t help but admire his friend’s impeccable tailoring. It was safe to say that Andrew Gregory owned more cashmere jackets than anyone who ever lived in Mitford, all of which were cut so cleanly to his form that a weight gain of barely two pounds would have forced him into another wardrobe. Discipline! That’s the ticket! thought the rector, chagrined that he’d slacked up on his jogging.

  He stood at the door with his neighbor from across the lane. “I hope business is thriving at the Oxford.”

  “Better than ever! And a curious thing happened. Over the weekend, I sold half the English pieces to an Englishman! Chap’s taking the whole lot back to Ipswich! And your business?” Andrew inquired with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

  “Oh, up and down,” replied the rector, smiling.

  He was sitting at the desk in his study when the phone rang.

  “Tim, dear!” said a cheerful voice. “We agree that Barnabas is a wonderful dog and boon companion, but how is it that he so easily replaces two old friends?”

  “Marge! I think of you daily, and you and Hal are always in my prayers. But you’d never know it, would you? Please forgive me.”

  “Forgive you, indeed! Your penalty is a Baxter apple pie, which I hear you’ve frozen in commercial quantities.”

  He laughed with the first friend he ever made in Mitford.

  “Hal will be in on Friday afternoon to do errands,” said Marge. “Why don’t you come out with Barnabas and spend the night and most of Saturday?”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “May he fetch you around four?”

  “Well . . . ,” said Father Tim, thinking of the rosebushes that needed transplanting, and the English ivy that needed digging up and potting, and the carpet stains he’d sworn to Puny he’d try to remove, and the bath that Barnabas must have at once, and the accumulation of papers and magazines on his desk, and the new helmet he had to order, and the perennial beds that needed attention, and the letters that wanted answering.

  His gaze fell upon the open Bible at his elbow. “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not,” began a verse in Proverbs.

  “I’ll be ready and waiting,” he said.

  The next morning, he walked across the plush, green churchyard and rounded the east corner of Lord’s Chapel, in search of Russell Jacks. He found the old sexton oiling his push mower.

  “Russell, how’s the world treating you this morning?”

  Russell stood up slowly and removed his battered hat. “Well, sir, there’s no rest for the wicked, and the righteous don’t need none.”

  "I’ll say!”

  “Them leaves ’re goin’ to be comin’ down by the wagonload,” he said soberly, looking up at the lacy ceiling of oak and maple branches.

  “Let me ask you a favor,” said Father Tim. “If you wouldn’t
mind parting with him, I’d like to borrow your grandboy on Friday afternoon and return him Saturday before dark.”

  “I’d be much obliged!”

  “I’m going out to a farm that has a whole raft of cows and horses and dogs, and good trees to climb, and I thought Dooley might enjoy it.”

  “I’d consider it a blessin’, to tell the truth. He’s about wore me out. Let’s just say he’s old enough to want t’ drive, but not tall enough to reach the pedals, if you get my meanin’.”

  “You sure don’t look any worse for wear,” said the rector, noting a new sparkle in the old man’s eyes.

  He inspected the mulch Russell was putting on the rhododendrons underneath the windows. Where the mulch hadn’t yet been spread, he noticed something unusual.

  “Russell, this looks like ashes. Are you putting ashes under the mulch?”

  “Nope, I ain’t.”

  He was not of the let’s-throw-ashes-around-all-the-shrubs-in-the-garden school. He took a spade out of the green wicker tool basket and scraped the pile of ashes away from the roots. “Looks like somebody dumped ashes out of an outdoor grill.”

  “No tellin’ what people’ll do these days.”

  “If you see any more of it around, let me know. We haven’t used the fireplace in a couple of years; I don’t know where that could have come from.”

  He stood up and wiped his hands on a handkerchief Puny had just ironed. “Well, Russell, keep up the good work. You’re the one who’s made our grounds a regular showplace, and I want you to know we all appreciate it.”

  Russell put his hat over his heart. “You reported that broke lock yet?”

  “The truth will out—no, I haven’t.” He could tell Russell believed that negligence in reporting this incident to the police would encourage someone to kick the doors in next time. “You rest up, now, while Dooley’s off to the farm.”

  “I’m goin’ to cook me a mess of greens and fry out some side meat, is what I’m goin’ to do!” he said eagerly. “I’m about half sick of peanut butter and jelly.”

  When he went home for lunch on Friday, Puny was ironing the shirt and overalls Dooley had left behind when he dressed for Miss Sadie’s interview.

  “Great farm clothes!” he said with satisfaction. “I wish you were coming with us, Puny.”

  “I do not like a farm,” she said with unusual emphasis. “You have to watch where you step ever’ minute.”

  “I can safely say you’d like Meadowgate.”

  “Work, that’s what farms are! And no letup! Cain’t go off to Asheville or down to Lake Lure nor anywhere else, with all them animals hangin’ on your dress tail. Women I’ve seen livin’ on farms looks like their granmaw by the time they git my age. No wonder they all run off t’ work in the cannin’ plant, even if they do come home smellin’ like kraut.”

  “You don’t have to preach me a sermon.”

  She put her hands on her hips and looked at him steadily. “I’ll scrub your floors and wash your drawers and put up your tomatoes and feed your dog, but I’ll not scrape your shoes after you been stompin’ around a farm.”

  “You have my word. I am not going out there to jump in a manure pile. I am going out there to walk through the woods, read my new book, and help cook dinner tonight. Now, what’s so bad about that?”

  “An’ I’m not goin’ to wash Dooley Barlowe if he comes back with farm mess on ’im.”

  Little Emma! he thought. “It’s a deal,” he said.

  As they approached the farm gate, the resident dogs ran out to meet the red truck.

  “Here they come!” yelled Hal over the din. “Open the door!”

  Father Tim threw open the door and Barnabas leaped out to greet Buckwheat, Bowser, Baudelaire, Bodacious, and Bonemeal.

  “Don’t throw me out there!” yelled Dooley, holding his hands over his ears.

  “Throw ’im out there!” Hal shouted, taking Dooley by the shoulder.

  “No, no, them ol’ dogs’ll eat me! Don’t throw me out there!”

  “Oh, all right, then,” Father Tim said, laughing. “We won’t throw you out till we get to the barn!”

  As the pickup drove through the stable shed, Dooley saw a bay mare looking soulfully over her stall door.

  “Throw me out now!” he cried, enthralled at his first sight of Goosedown Owen.

  On his list of favorite things to do, “sit in the kitchen at Meadowgate” was clearly among the top five. This afternoon, however, he might have placed it at the very, very top.

  A low fire burned on the hearth, warming the autumn air that, by morning, would cause a heavy mist to rise upon the fields.

  The dumpling pot was simmering on the black cook stove, and vases brimming with wildflowers stood on the pine table and along the windowsills.

  However, there was to be no sitting in the Meadowgate kitchen today. Dooley dragged him out to the stable, saying every step of the way, “I want t’ ride ’at horse, I got t’ git a ride on ’at horse.”

  “Dooley, have you ever ridden a horse?”

  “Nope, but I know how.”

  “How?”

  “You take it over t’ th’ house, you stand on th’ top step of th’ porch, and you jis’ jump on it an’ go.”

  “What about a saddle?”

  “Don’t need no saddle.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “I’ve thought about it a million times. It’ll work.” He thought Dooley’s hair seemed redder, his eyes bluer, and his freckles thicker under the bill of his new baseball cap.

  Hal came around the side of the stable from his office, carrying his black O.B. bag

  “Finally got this bag in order,” he said. “Let me set it in the truck and I’ll join you boys.”

  “I’d like t’ git a ride on ’at horse,” said Dooley, following at the vet’s heels.

  “I think that might be arranged. Ever been on a horse?”

  “Nope, but I done it in my mind over and over ’til I know how.”

  “To tell the truth, that’s how I learned to ride a horse. Goosedown has spirit, but I don’t think she’ll throw you.” Hal put the bag through the open truck window and set it on the front seat. “Course, there’s no guarantee, either.”

  “I can handle it,” said Dooley, putting his thumbs in the straps of his overalls.

  The first time Hal walked Dooley and Goosedown Owen around the stable yard, Dooley’s face went as white as library paste.

  “Stick up there!” said Hal.

  The second time around, his color had improved.

  “Lookin’ good!” said Hal.

  The third time, Hal ran, still holding the bridle, and Dooley bounced up and down with glee. “Let ’er go!” he hollered.

  Hal let her go.

  Goosedown Owen cantered to the hog pen, stopped suddenly at the gate, and threw her rider into a trough of fresh slop.

  That it was only apple peelings, sour oatmeal, orange rinds, cabbage leaves, sprouted potatoes, and stale soup was no consolation.

  “Slop!” sputtered Dooley, rolling out of the trough and into the mud. “I’d like to half kill ’at horse!”

  Goosedown Owen had trotted back to the stable and was eyeing the whole scene from the comfort of her stall. Dooley stood up and shook his fist toward the stable. “I’m ridin’ you agin, you mule-headed ol’ poop!”

  Father Tim strolled over to Dooley, who was climbing through the hog pen gate.

  “Do you, ah, know what would happen if Puny Bradshaw could see you now?”

  He wiped his hair from his eyes with an arm that was smeared to the elbow. “Yep. I’d be dead meat.”

  Dinner at Meadowgate Farm was always an event, and tonight was no exception. Marge had baked a savory hen stuffed with sausage, bread crumbs, orange peel, and farm onions, which she served with brandied fruit and a pot of dumplings so splendid that the rector recommended entering the recipe in the county fair.

  As the men cleared away the dishes, a three-quarter moon rose
and shone through the windows that looked toward the meadow.

  Dooley sat on the floor with a jumble of dogs. Bodacious and Bonemeal chewed rawhide strips the size of ceiling molding. Barnabas slept on the hearth by the low, simmering fire. Baudelaire curled up on the chintz sofa and looked doleful. Buckwheat chased his tail and barked, and Bowser sat contentedly in Dooley’s lap and licked his face.

  Marge eased herself into her father’s rocking chair. “Dogs!” she said, with mock disgust. “The baby’s first words will be ‘woof, woof.’ ”

  “Do you think you’ll be game for an art showing on the twentieth?” the rector wanted to know. “Andrew Gregory is framing more than forty of Uncle Billy’s drawings.”

  Marge rubbed her sizable stomach. “I’m not game for much of anything, Tim dear.”

  “If she can handle it, we’ll be there,” said Hal. “Like the rest of us, she has her good days and her bad days.”

  “I know all about that,” said the rector, as the phone rang.

  Hal reached into a wooden bread bowl filled with winter squash and plucked out a cordless phone. “Hello! Meadowgate here.”

  He listened ruefully, holding the receiver away from his ear. Even over the din of the dogs, a voice could be heard shouting.

  “. . . an’ you better come quick, for I don’t know how long she’s been at it, bellerin’ her head off, and me down with the pneumonia and cain’t leave the house.” There followed a series of long, racking coughs, explosive hawking, and general bronchial pyrotechnics that made every dog in the room grow silent and stare at the phone Hal now held above his head.

  “Is she in the stall?” Hal shouted.

  “In the stall tied to ’er feedbox, and it sounds bad t’ me. She’s kickin’ th’ wall to beat the band, and if I lose this ’n on top of losin’ Mister Cooley, you’ll not see no more of me, it’ll put me down like a doornail.”

  “Hold on, Miss Reba, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Tell her to have a cup of hot tea with honey, for goodness’ sake!”

  “My wife says have a cup of hot tea with honey!”

  This advice was greeted with a coughing demonstration of such force and magnitude that the audience was mesmerized. Finally, Hal came to himself and simply hung up the phone.