Orchard of Hope

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “You’re preaching at me, Zella,” David said.

  “Turnabout’s fair play,” Zella snapped. “We can’t just hide our heads in the sand on this one. Let Jocelyn write a story about it. She was there.”

  Jocie’s father said she didn’t have to if it was too hard for her to think about what had happened, but it had helped to write some of it down. And then she’d been so busy helping Wes and Noah get the pages ready to run and running them that she hadn’t had time to think about the flames racing up the stairs to trap her and Miss Sally and Mr. Harvey.

  Her father had been there on Tuesday when they folded the papers. So had Leigh with her brownies, but the folding session was solemn and somber as they folded the papers with Mr. Harvey’s picture on the front page, top fold.

  Wednesday, Leigh took off work. That morning after they took the papers to the post office, she drove Jocie over to the hospital to see Tabitha and her baby. He was the cutest thing Jocie had ever seen as he lay there in his little bed on wheels behind the viewing window. He kept waving his fists and fussing at the nurses.

  Jocie told Tabitha how cute he was and that she needed to hurry up and come up with a name or they’d just have to call him Boy Brooke the way she’d heard some people name their dogs Pup or Dog. And then she suggested Stephen Lee. Stephen for Aunt Love’s baby and Lee for Mr. Harvey. That had been his middle name. It was in the obituary they’d printed in the Banner.

  “Stephen Lee. That does have a nice sound, and I liked Mr. Harvey. He was sweet to me,” Tabitha said and then looked worried. “But do you think, you know, if I ever do have another baby that I could still name her Stephanie Grace? Would that be too confusing having a Stephen and a Stephanie?”

  “Not for anybody with half a brain,” Jocie said. “The names don’t sound a thing alike. And who cares what anybody thinks, anyway? He’s so cute. He needs a good name.”

  “He looks like his father,” Tabitha said.

  “Well, you did tell me once that his father had beautiful brown eyes,” Jocie reminded her.

  “But I forgot to add the part about the beautiful brown skin,” Tabitha said.

  “It won’t matter,” Jocie and Leigh both said at once.

  But Tabitha just looked at them without smiling. “How can you say that after what just happened to Mr. Harvey? It will matter.”

  Leigh stepped closer to give Tabitha a hug before she said, “All right, you’re right. It might matter to some people, but it won’t matter to the people who are most important to you and now to him. Your father and Jocie. Aunt Love and me. Wes. We’ll be there to help you and him through whatever happens.”

  “So name him already,” Jocie said.

  “Okay, okay, I will.” Tabitha had made a face at Jocie, then looked sad as she’d asked them to be sure to tell Miss Sally how sorry she was about Mr. Harvey.

  And now her father had preached the funeral, and they were at the cemetery getting ready to put Mr. Harvey beneath the ground. It was still hot, even though some clouds had drifted in to cover the sun. People had looked up at the sky as they’d walked from their cars across the graveyard to crowd around the tent set up over the grave. In hushed voices they talked about how much they needed rain.

  Miss Sally was sitting under the tent with Myra and Alex Hearndon on either side of her. Cassidy sat close to Myra, and Noah had the twins at the back of the tent. Dorothy McDermott had moved up beside him to help with the children if she was needed. A few nieces and nephews filled up the rest of the chairs under the tent.

  Miss Sally dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief as Jocie’s father read the graveside Scriptures. Jocie had attended a lot of funerals with her father. She knew how they went. Most of the crying happened in the funeral home before Mr. Hazelton shut the casket. The graveside was just one final good-bye, but today everybody was crying. Everybody but her.

  Jocie didn’t have any tears. It was as if the fire had been so hot that it had seared every tear out of her heart. Beside her, tears ran down Leigh’s cheeks. Even her father had to wipe away tears as he read from his Bible. But Jocie just listened with her eyes so dry they almost hurt as she looked around at the people gathered there and wondered if any of them had been under the hoods.

  None of it seemed real when she thought about it. The white-hooded men around Miss Sally’s house. The fire. Crawling out the window and across the roof with Mr. Harvey talking to the Lord. But it was real. Her father was reading from his Bible. The people around her were weeping. Mr. Harvey was dead.

  What was it Mr. Harvey had told her when they went out to see the new calf? That birth and death were all part of God’s plan for his people. But the fire had nothing to do with God’s plans. That was hatred with feet and torches.

  Her father was through praying, and Mr. Hazelton was picking a rose out of the spray on top of the casket to give to Miss Sally. When he handed the rose to Miss Sally, she whispered something to him. He looked a little surprised before he went back to the casket for two more roses to hand to Mrs. Hearndon and Cassidy. Cassidy wouldn’t take hers, so Mrs. Hearndon had to take them both.

  The first raindrop hit Jocie’s head as Miss Sally stood up on the green fake-grass rug under the tent. And then more drops splattered against the tent. There was no sign of a storm, no thunder or lightning, no wind. The clouds overhead just broke open and rain began falling, almost as if the very sky was weeping for Mr. Harvey. It was a gentle rain, and nobody ran for their cars. They just stood there and held out their hands to catch the drops.

  Miss Sally came out from under the tent and looked up toward the sky, letting the rain wash the tears off her face. And then she laughed. Right out loud. “Isn’t that just like Harvey?” She looked at the people around her. “He just went right to the source of all rain and talked the Lord into sending it on down to us.”

  It rained the rest of the day and all night long and into the next morning. The same gentle steady rain that let the ground drink in every drop. And all the time it was raining, everybody in Holly County kept thinking about Mr. Harvey and how much he had loved his land and his neighbors and how the rain was saving the crops. Of course, Noah and his family didn’t have any apple trees left to be saved by the rain.

  Jocie went back to school on Thursday. Everybody was extra nice to her. Paulette even left Janice and Linda to sit with Jocie and Charissa at lunchtime. Of course, that might not have had as much to do with the fire as Paulette still hoping Jocie would say it was okay for her to like Ronnie Martin. Jocie didn’t know why Paulette needed her okay, but for some reason, she did.

  But Jocie had too much other stuff on her mind to worry about whether she’d ever be able to forgive Ronnie Martin. She didn’t even have time to pray about that right now. She had to pray for Miss Sally and Noah’s family. And she had to pray that somehow she would be able to close her eyes and go to sleep again without seeing flames and men in hoods. She thought about asking her father to help her pray on that one, but he’d been so busy helping everybody that they barely had the chance to talk about anything except what needed to be done at the Banner.

  Thursday, her dad took Wes back to the doctor. Wes came home wearing what he called a walking cast. He still had to use his crutches, but he got to put weight on his leg, and he started eyeing his motorcycle. When Jocie went by the newspaper office after school, he told her, “You know, I think if somebody helped me climb on the thing, I could take a ride now.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Jocie told him. “Enough bad things have happened this year already.”

  “Wouldn’t be nothing bad about me taking a ride.”

  “It would be bad when you had a wreck because your leg was in a cast.”

  “I didn’t say I’d do the driving. Noah could. Or maybe you,” Wes said with a grin.

  “Don’t either one of us have a license,” Jocie reminded him.

  Wes sighed. “Well, I guess that is a problem. Maybe I can talk your daddy into being a preacher on a hog. Mi
ght make Miss Leigh think he was dashing and handsome.”

  “She already does,” Jocie said.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Then how about old Zell? You think she’d take me for a spin?”

  The thought of Zella on Wes’s motorcycle was so crazy that Jocie had to laugh. For the first time all week.

  “There, that’s more like it,” he said. “You can’t stop laughing, Jo.”

  “You weren’t doing all that much laughing a few weeks ago yourself.” Jocie peered over at him. “Then it was me trying to get you to laugh.”

  “That’s what friends and family are for.” Wes reached over and touched her hand. “What is that verse Lovella sometimes says? That one about the merry heart.”

  “‘A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.’”

  “It’s medicine all of us need.” Wes sat back in his chair.

  “But how can your heart be merry when bad things are happening?” Sadness welled up inside Jocie as she thought about Mr. Harvey.

  “That’s too hard a question for an old Jupiterian like me,” Wes said. “But could be it has something to do with that peace that passeth understanding your daddy talks about sometimes. And with how even when bad things are happening, good things are still happening too.”

  “Like Tabitha’s baby?”

  “That’s one of the good things for sure. Did she ever decide on a name for the little feller?”

  “Finally. Stephen Lee. She’s supposed to bring him home tomorrow. She had to stay an extra day or two because she had a fever or something, but she’s okay now.”

  “Yeah, that’s what your daddy told me. He said me and Zell would have to hold down the fort here while he goes after her. Of course, the way old Zell’s been acting like she’s afraid to look sideways at me, she may take the day off too.”

  “Oh, you know Zella. She’s always strange.” Jocie made a face as she looked out toward the front office where Zella was banging on her typewriter.

  “You got that right, but then so am I.” Wes ran his fingers through his hair until it was spiking out in all directions. “You think I’ll scare little Stevie when I come see him? Miss Leigh says she’ll drive me out there. In her car. She won’t talk about getting on my motorcycle. Turns right pale at the thought of it.”

  Jocie giggled again before she said, “No. He’ll like you.” She hesitated a couple of seconds. “You haven’t seen him yet, have you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “His father was black.”

  “So your daddy told me.”

  Again Jocie hesitated before she said, “Do you think the Klan will hear about that and try to burn a cross in our yard?”

  Wes leaned closer and put his hand on Jocie’s cheek. “It’s going to be all right, Jo. You and your daddy have a higher power watching over you.”

  “I want him to watch over you too.”

  “Well, maybe he already is, Jo.” He patted her cheek and sat back again. “Just think about that tree falling on me back when the tornado tried to blow us to kingdom come. He helped us live through that. Not just you but me too, when by rights I shouldn’t have.”

  “But why didn’t he watch over Mr. Harvey?” She kept her eyes intently on Wes as she waited for him to answer. She needed an answer.

  But he shook his head. “More questions too hard for an old Jupiterian. But then again, how do you know he wasn’t? Didn’t you say Harvey saw angels?”

  “That’s what he said, but do you think there were really angels there? That the Lord could have opened my eyes and let me see them the way he did for Elisha’s servant in that Old Testament story where the Lord’s army of horses and chariots were on the mountain around them protecting Elisha?”

  “I don’t know, Jo, but the one thing I think we can be sure of is that Harvey saw them. They were real for him.”

  Friday, Tabitha and the baby came home, and the minute Jocie got home from school, Tabitha made her sit down on the couch to hold the baby. He was so tiny, so soft, so new. Jocie touched his hand. He opened his eyes and smiled.

  “Oh look,” Aunt Love said. “He must be dreaming of angels.”

  Angels. Jocie wondered if they were the same angels Mr. Harvey had seen. Then she was remembering walking out to the field with Mr. Harvey to find the new calf. A time to be born. A time to die. Tears filled Jocie’s eyes and overflowed onto her cheeks. Stephen Lee didn’t seem to mind even when the tears began dripping off her chin onto his blanket. He just kept smiling his seeing-angels smile.

  “‘I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears,’” Aunt Love whispered the verse.

  45

  On Sunday, a former pastor, Brother Perry, delivered the Homecoming sermon. David was glad he didn’t have to preach. It was hard enough just standing in front of the church making the announcements and leading the prayers and watching the deacons come forward to take up the collection without Mr. Harvey.

  Miss Sally was there, smiling the same as always, with a kind word for everybody who came over to talk to her before the services started. Now, as the deacons moved back up the aisle with the offering plates, she had Elise on her lap and Cassidy sandwiched between her and Myra Hearndon, who held Eli. Noah sat straight and tall beside his mother, but he kept looking over his shoulder as if afraid something or somebody might be trying to sneak up on him.

  Alex Hearndon wasn’t there. He’d told David that he had been giving some thought to coming to church with Myra, but after what had happened to Mr. Harvey, he didn’t see how he’d ever be able to go inside a church house again. He didn’t see how anybody could.

  “The Lord’s not to blame for what happened to Mr. Harvey,” David had told him. “Or to your apple trees.”

  “You credit the Lord for the good things that happen. Why not the bad?”

  “Because the Lord has given man the freedom to choose good or evil. ‘A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.’”

  “Scripture, I’m thinking,” Alex said.

  “The words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. It’s up to us to choose the treasure we’re going to store up in our hearts.”

  “A bunch of people around here have been choosing the evil treasure.”

  “But that shouldn’t turn us away from the love of the Lord. I believe the Lord can make good come out of anything,” David said.

  “That’s what Miss Sally says too, but I can’t think of the first thing good that could come out of their house burning down or Mr. Harvey dying or my trees being beat down and ruined. Not one good thing.” The man stared at David, daring him to say any of that was good.

  “Nor can I,” David agreed with him. “But the workings of the Lord are wondrous and mysterious.”

  “I’ll let you and Myra talk about that. Me, I’m wondering if your Lord is working at all.”

  David wished Alex was there beside him now, watching his congregation and seeing the workings of the Lord that morning. Tabitha had insisted on bringing her baby even though Aunt Love thought it too soon for her to get out. But Tabitha said she felt fine and she wanted to be there for Miss Sally and for David. And the church people, Tabitha’s Christian brothers and sisters, had looked at her baby and smiled with joy for her. If there were whispers of disapproval, David hadn’t heard them. Perhaps the Lord was blocking David’s ears, and if that was so, he was thankful.

  Leigh was sitting beside Tabitha, ready to help with the baby if Tabitha needed her to. She didn’t know anything about babies, but she had a loving heart. David’s eyes touched on Leigh, and his own heart lightened—almost sang—even with all the problems pressing down on him. Surely without a doubt Leigh coming into his life was the working of the Lord. And again he was thankful.

  The church was full. They’d had to bring out extra chairs from the Sunday school rooms. Bob Jessup and his family were there for the first time since he’d thought David had doubted his spiritual comm
itment. Another working of the Lord. Bob had come to see David after Mr. Harvey’s funeral. What they had said would forever remain just between the two men and God. But Bob was changed. He’d driven to Atlanta, Georgia, and bought apple trees. They were out in his truck, pulled over in the shade in the church parking area. He’d asked David to go with him to take them to the Hearndons after the services were over that afternoon. David was praying that Alex Hearndon would see the working of the Lord in that and accept the trees.

  But maybe the most joyous sign of the working of the Lord was Wes sitting in a chair at the end of the pew beside Jocie. She kept reaching over to touch his arm as if to make sure he was really there. David himself had blinked a couple of times when Wes had come in that morning with Leigh. When he went back to greet them, Wes narrowed his eyes and said, “Now don’t go expecting me to do no aisle walking. I just thought I’d come along with Miss Leigh to cheer up Jo a little this morning.”

  “She’ll be excited to see you,” David said. And a bit of Scripture had echoed in his heart. O Lord, how great are thy works!

  Cassidy hadn’t wanted to come to church. Not even for the morning services, much less all day long. Not because she didn’t love the Lord. She told her mama she loved the Lord, but she didn’t like all those eyes looking at her. White eyes. Eyes maybe hating her enough to tear up her daddy’s beautiful trees. Now they’d never have that orchard of hope he’d talked about.

  Cassidy had heard them talking last night. Her mama and daddy. Her daddy said he didn’t have the heart to plant any more trees that would just get tore up too. He said they might have to go back to Chicago so he could get a job, which was okay with Cassidy. Except for Miss Sally.

  That’s what her mama told her daddy. That they couldn’t leave yet. That they’d have to wait a little while because of Miss Sally. Cassidy didn’t think her mama wanted to leave Miss Sally at all. But her daddy said they couldn’t expect Miss Sally to take care of them after all the trouble she’d just had. He said if the white people were mad before, when they’d just been living there minding their own business planting trees, then they’d be crazy mad if they thought they were taking advantage of Miss Sally’s kind heart. He said it was no telling what they might do.