At Home in Mitford

by Jan Karon

  “Reba Cooley,” he announced, as if that explained everything.

  “Rats!” said Marge, as Hal hurried out of the kitchen and took a jacket off the peg in the hallway.

  “I like ’is ol’ dog,” said Dooley, oblivious to anything but Bowser’s devoted attention.

  Father Tim dried his hands. “I’d like to come with you.”

  “You’re on, pal. Grab a jacket, it’s getting cold tonight.”

  Hal kissed his wife, tousled Dooley’s hair, and was gone, the rector beside him in the moonlight that lay like a platinum sheen over the lawn of Meadowgate Farm.

  Hal drove a few miles on the moonlit highway, then turned onto a series of narrow roads that wound steeply along the side of a mountain.

  “You should drive along these roads when there’s no moon,” he said. “It’s enough to make a man want a chew of tobacco.”

  They noticed that the higher they went, the lower the temperature dropped.

  “I don’t mind telling you that this nursing-home business frightens me,” the rector said, pulling on a fleece-lined jacket that smelled strongly of horse linament. “Five million dollars! Sometimes, the enormity of it is overwhelming. It’s going to be a huge project to sieve through a little parish.

  “It’s like that Vermeer fiasco. I was praying it wasn’t a valuable painting, as you know, because it would have torn us asunder. I’m not saying we couldn’t pull ourselves back together, but I dreaded the . . . well, the violence of the disruption. A small parish is a fragile ecology.”

  “It is.”

  “We’re close to naming a building committee. And you wouldn’t believe the horror stories I’ve heard about building committees.”

  Hal tightened his left-hand grip on the wheel. He knew exactly what his rector was working around to. He felt in his pocket for his pipe, which lived in this particular jacket, packed and ready to go during any emergency.

  “I’ll sit on the committee, of course,” Father Tim said, “and I expect Ron Malcolm to be asked . . .”

  “A retired contractor,” Hal said. “A good man.”

  “Miss Sadie, of course. Jeb Reynolds.” He paused, then plunged ahead. “You know I need you on this committee, even though Marge is only a month away from an event that will change both your lives.”

  Just then, the truck swung around a bend, and the lights picked out a small farmhouse and barn, an odd assortment of sheds and chicken coops, great rolls of baling wire, a fleet of rusting tractors and hand plows, and three baying coon dogs standing abreast at the side door of the house.

  The porch light came on with such fierce wattage that the rector covered his eyes, then the door banged open as if a gale-force wind had caught it. Reba Cooley peered out.

  “We’re here,” called Hal, “and driving on down to the barn. I’ll need a bucket of warm water. I’ll send the father back for it.”

  The rector leaned forward and threw up his hand. To say that Reba Cooley presented a striking appearance would have been an understatement of ridiculous proportions. He thought she looked like a vast boulder, dressed in a chenille robe, that someone had rolled to the door. Her hair was cut short, like a man’s, so that he said later he would have sworn it was Mr. Cooley, had he not learned the poor fellow now rested in a plot behind the chicken house.

  The cow stall was damp and cold, and he was grateful for the jacket. He couldn’t remember when he had last heard the bawling of a cow, but suddenly, the smells and sounds brought back memories of his Mississippi boyhood.

  His father had been an attorney in their little town of Holly Springs, with a farm that lay just two miles distant from his office. They’d never kept large animals, as the other 4-H families did. But there were rabbits by the dozens, and flocks of chestnut-colored bantams.

  He remembered asking, with immeasurable disappointment, why everything on their farm had to be small.

  “This is not a working farm,” his father had said with finality, and no amount of pleading by his mother had been able to change his mind.

  He remembered Harold Johnson, a strapping boy who was held back in seventh grade for three years running, whom he envied for his knowledge of farm life. “Ol’ cow calved last night,” Harold might say, smugly. “Dropped a big ’un.”

  Then there was Raymond Lereaux who showed horses and won blue ribbons that he brought to school for show-and-tell.

  It had taken a while to get interested in something as small as rabbits, but when he did get interested, he was fairly consumed, and it was hardly any wonder that he chose to breed Flemish Giants.

  Dark-haired Jessica Raney, who dressed in embroidered pinafores and lived on a dairy farm, was wide-eyed with admiration when he started winning ribbons for his sleek show rabbits. And during the year when disease wiped out his entire herd, she sent a card saying she was sorry. Just that, nothing more. And he’d put it in his sock drawer, where it stayed for a very long time.

  The death of the herd, and the shock of seeing them sprawled stiffly in the hutches, had not set well with his father.

  “No more,” he had snapped, walking briskly from the hutches toward the car. He had run after his father with the taste of iron in his mouth, his heart heavy as a stone. “Wait!” he had cried out to his father, who got in the car and roared down the driveway, not looking back.

  He would never forget the agony he felt, as if something of himself had perished with the herd. What he hated most was the way their legs had stood stiffly in the air, a humiliating loss of dignity in creatures whom he’d found to be poised and wise.

  Hal Owen inspected his patient carefully, then removed most of the contents of his O.B. bag. Anesthetic, syringe, lubricant, gloves, leg chains, hooks, towels. Father Tim warily laid the cow puller, which he’d carried in from the truck, on a shelf. The cow bawled hideously.

  “Tim, might as well go to the house for water now, and I’ll see what’s up. We may be close to the countdown. Make it warm, it’s getting cold as blazes. And bring the bucket full.”

  He zipped his jacket and headed toward the house, where he was greeted by the trio of baying hounds. They leaped against his chest and legs, barking hysterically, and he was not surprised to find that quoting Scripture did nothing to control the onslaught.

  He pounded on the storm door, and waited.

  When Reba Cooley threw open the door, he couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing overalls under her robe.

  “Preacher,” she said, “I got a job for you.”

  In the kitchen, she handed him a flashlight and a bucket of warm water.

  “Not one real preacher could I lay hold of t’ say a word over Mister Cooley.” At this, she coughed so hard that the water splashed on his shoes.

  “All I could git was a lay preacher, not hardly more’n twenty year old.” She reached into a pocket of her overalls. “Here, this is your’n to go over there and do it right. You know I’d go with you, but I’m a sick woman.” He laid the money on the table as they walked out to the stoop. The silvery moon that lighted their path at Meadowgate Farm was not shining at the Cooleys’.

  “Right over yonder,” she said, pointing into the inky darkness. “Go around that balin’ wire, on past that tractor, take a left by the chicken coop, and you’ll step right on ’is grave.”

  A fine way to put it, he thought, checking the flashlight. It beamed weakly.

  “Hit’s a little family plot, about a dozen in there. Mister Cooley’s is the fresh ’un, you cain’t miss it,” she said, overcome with another fit of coughing.

  He managed to find his way to the baling wire and set the bucket by the tractor to pick up when his mission was accomplished. The dogs grew bored with his company and ran ahead.

  He beamed the flashlight ahead and picked his way around the huge bale of rusted wire. Surely, this would only take a moment. Best to get it out of the way, then go on to the barn and assist Hal.

  “Aha!” he said, expecting to see what he was looking for, as the moon broke
through leaden clouds.

  In the eerie platinum light, he found that he was, indeed, looking at a graveyard, but not the family kind. As far as he could tell, there were three rusted Chevrolets, a 1956 Pontiac with no hood, a Dodge pickup on blocks, and a couple of Studebakers filled with hay.

  “Lord,” he said, earnestly, “I don’t know where this fellow’s grave is, and it’s too dark to be stumbling around out here looking for it. Surely, I don’t have to be standing on it to pray over it. So here goes.”

  He bent his head and prayed on behalf of the departed.

  Then he departed, himself, with great haste, only to fall over the bucket he’d left sitting by the tractor, emptying its contents in the grass.

  “Left foot’s bent backward,” Hal said. “Where the dickens have you been?”

  “To a funeral,” he said, setting the refilled bucket down.

  “I washed up under a spigot I found out front. We’ve got a little job to do here.”

  It was after two o’clock when they started home in the truck, with the heater going full blast. The moon raced in and out of the clouds, suddenly revealing open meadows and high ridges and cows sleeping under trees in the pastures.

  Hal was exhausted but happy. “Did you see how I turned her to face the calf? Once she licks it, she’ll never leave it.”

  “Tonight ought to be good for at least a couple of sermons.”

  “Wasn’t too much for you, was it? I mean, when I asked you to clean the placental tissue off the calf, you were white as a sheet.”

  “I beg to differ. When I was doing that, I was merely pale. Turning white as a sheet came when you asked me to help use the cow puller.”

  “Good, honest work!”

  “Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to swap jobs.”

  “Me, either, pal. I’d rather reach in a cow’s rear end any day than have to deal with a horse’s behind.”

  “Harry Nelson is being transferred to Birmingham,” Father Tim said mildly, having saved this pièce de résistance for the right moment.

  Hal was quiet for a couple of miles.

  “Okay,” he said, at last. “I’m going to pray about sitting on the building committee, and I want to talk to Marge. I’ll let you know next week. Now, lay off, will you?”

  Just as he felt a certain warmth in his spirit, he felt the creeping cold in his feet. But it wasn’t until later, under the glare of the porch light, that he saw what would have horrified Puny Bradshaw.

  Cow manure not only covered his loafers, but the better part of his socks and pants cuffs, as well.

  “Lord have mercy!” he said, presumably speaking in the local vernacular, but meaning it quite literally, as well.

  He was sitting on the back steps of the farmhouse, a coffee cup beside him, cleaning his shoes. It was a glorious morning, as most mornings had been during this spectacular autumn.

  Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?

  It breathes in the air, it shines in the light!

  He sang heedlessly. If there was anywhere on earth he could sing a favorite hymn at the top of his voice, it was here in the sunshine on this very back step.

  The screen door slammed. “I want t’ ride ’at horse,” said Dooley, sitting down beside him.

  “You might begin by saying good morning.”

  “Good mornin’, I want t’ ride ’at horse.”

  “Did you know there are cows on this farm? And chickens? And horseshoes and croquet and a grape arbor and apple trees? As I recall, there’s even a log cabin down by the creek, built for someone who was once just your age. Would you like to see all that when I finish cleaning these shoes?”

  “I would, soon as I ride ’at horse.”

  “Dooley, you are a man of single purpose, a characteristic which, with proper control, can take you far in this world.”

  “We’re havin’ pancakes.”

  “Wonderful. Who combed your hair?”

  “Nobody.”

  “That’s what I thought. What did you do with those clothes covered with slop?”

  “I stuffed ’em in a paper sack and put ’em in th’ truck. I thought Puny’d wash ’em.”

  “Ha!” he said, putting the final polish on his loafers.

  The two sat in silence for a while, looking toward the barn and away to the steep hill covered with a blaze of autumn maples.

  “Do you go t’ hollerin’ when you preach?”

  “Hollering? Oh, not much. Why?”

  “Miss Sadie wants me t’ go to church with ’er in th’ mornin’, and if you go t’ hollerin’, I’ll prob’ly go t’ runnin’.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I cain’t stand a hollerin’ preacher.”

  “Me either.”

  “Well, I’ll come then.”

  “Comb your hair first,” said the rector.

  The morning had continued so fair and golden that, after the service, he greeted his congregation on the lawn. “Did I go to hollerin’?” he asked Dooley.

  “A time or two, you had me worried,” the boy said.

  Miss Sadie gave him the usual bright peck on the cheek. “Louella is coming home to live at Fernbank!” she said, joyfully. “Her grandson’s bank has transferred him to Los Angles, and Louella said if she had to live in Los Angeles, she’d kill herself! I’m so happy about this, Father. Could I see you first thing in the morning about some insurance papers? I need your advice.”

  Harold Newland shook his hand. “If it’s all right,” he said, blushing, “I’d like to see you sometime in the morning.”

  The new woman who was sitting on the gospel side these days took his hand and smiled. “Olivia Davenport, Father. I enjoyed the service very much.”

  “We’re glad to have you with us, Olivia. Your hat adds a lovely touch.”

  “‘I’m afraid I’m a bit old-fashioned about wearing hats to church.”

  “No more old-fashioned than I in liking to see them!” Yes, indeed. A perfect wife for Hoppy Harper.

  “Would it be possible to have a visit with you in the morning?”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” he said. “Around ten?”

  So far, his Monday morning appointments were stacking up like planes over Atlanta.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Neighbors

  “Father, I’ve come to ask for Emma’s hand in marriage.”

  Having said that, Harold Newland blushed deeply and squirmed like a schoolboy on the visitor’s bench. “You see, there’s nobody else to ask, and I believe in askin’.”

  “I believe in it myself, Harold. And I’m happy you’ve come. I’d like to say that I think the world of Emma Garrett. She’s as dependable as the day is long and has a spirit of generosity that’s practically unequaled in my experience. She’s been mighty good for me, and I expect her to be twice as good for you.”

  “’Course, I’m not takin’ her away from you. She’ll want to keep workin’, and I thought I might get her a four-wheel drive since we’ll be livin’ out a ways.”

  “I can see Emma in a four-wheel drive.”

  “We’ll move into my house and sell her place as soon as we can.”

  “When do you think the wedding might be?”

  “Emma thought we ought to wait ’til spring, but I say the sooner the better. And I was hopin’ . . .” Harold hesitated, with obvious discomfort.

  “What were you hoping?”

  “Hopin’ that you might be willin’ to join with my preacher for the ceremony.”

  “Well, I don’t see why not. The more the merrier!”

  Two down and one to go, he thought, as he flushed the toilet in the office bathroom and got ready for his next caller.

  The beautiful, dark-haired Olivia Davenport did an odd thing. Rather than use the visitor’s bench like everybody else, she walked to Emma’s chair, sat down across from him, crossed her shapely legs, and said:

  “Father Tim, I’m dying.”

  He could only trust that his face didn’t convey th
e shock he felt.

  “I’m asking you to help me find something to make the rest of my life worth living.

  “Mother left me her winter and summer homes, and I have considerable property of my own. That means I could spend these last months being quite idle and carefree, and, believe me, that’s tempting. But I did not come to Mitford to join the club and sit by the pool. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s absolutely wrong for me.

  “I came to Mitford to do something that will make a difference. And while I’m not smart enough to know what that something is, I believe with all my heart that you can tell me.”

  The first time he set eyes on Olivia Davenport, he felt as if the Holy Spirit had spoken to his heart. This time was no different. He sensed at once that Olivia Davenport was the answer to a prayer he’d initiated two years ago.

  “Olivia, I’d like to ask you to read something, if you’d be so kind.”

  He handed her his open Bible, pointed to the Twenty-seventh Psalm of David, and in clear, lucid tones, she read:

  “ ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me; He shall set me upon a rock. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.’ ”

  She let the book rest in her lap.

  “If you were ill,” he said quietly, “with no one to sit by your bed, to hold your hand when you’re lonely, or rejoice with you when you’re glad, would there be anything, after all, to live for?”

  Olivia looked at him steadily. It was a rhetorical question.

  “It would give courage to a lot of people to hear the faith and victory in these words.”

  She smiled and, without looking at the book in her lap, repeated something she clearly knew well. “ ‘For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me; He shall set me upon a rock.’ ”

  “He has hidden you in His pavilion?”

  She smiled, tears shining in her eyes. “And He has set me upon a rock.”