All Is Swell

by Robert Farrell Smith

  And yet, how weird it was to have met Grace here. I would most likely be gone in a few months, never to return. And I could already see myself comparing every girl I met after my mission to Grace. I only wished that I could really get to know her. Of course, there was really no good way for a missionary to get to know a girl while serving a mission. At least, there was no right way. The fact that I was alone with her now was more than most missionaries should ever experience. I felt a little guilty.

  “So do you ever think about coming out to church?” I asked Grace, trying to feel more like a branch president.

  “I think about a lot of things,” she replied.

  “It would be great if you did,” I said.

  Grace sort of smiled.

  “You have a nice family,” I commented, desperately trying to make conversation. “Your father is a great help to the ward.”

  “I’m happy you approve,” she teased.

  I smiled, liking this side of her.

  “What’s your family like?” she then asked.

  “Oh, two parents, a younger sister, and a brother,” I answered as if I were being timed.

  “Do they have names?” Grace asked, pushing aside a long tree limb so as to slip through a tight spot in the forest. She let go, and the limb swung back at me.

  “My sister’s name is Margaret, and my brother’s name is Abel,” I informed her while dodging the branch.

  Silence ensued.

  “You like to read,” I finally stated bluntly, knowing she spent a good deal of time at the Virgil’s Find library, and sounding like an idiot.

  Grace smirked. Except it wasn’t a smirk. It was void of any malice or sarcasm—it was a sincere smirk.

  “I love to read,” Grace answered.

  Silence again.

  “How about you?” she then asked.

  “I read lots of things back home, but here I concentrate on just reading my scriptures.”

  Grace blinked, her long eyelashes giving me something new to concentrate on.

  “I’m reading the biography of Martin Calypso,” Grace explained.

  “Oh,” was all I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask me if I knew who Martin Calypso was.

  Grace stopped. “Do you know who he is?” she asked.

  “No,” I admitted with a sorry little laugh.

  “He was a man who was unashamed of his family despite the fact that his debt-ridden brother eventually killed him.”

  “Mighty tolerant of him,” I commented.

  Grace laughed.

  I recognized where we were now. A few minutes later the big meadow came into view. Kids were swarming over the rotted pioneer wagons, screaming and hollering as if they knew that summer was coming to an end.

  The instant we stepped out of the trees and into the meadow, everyone looked up and took us in. I suddenly missed my companion more than ever before. Whether or not they were active, everyone in Thelma’s Way knew that elders shouldn’t be walking alone with girls, especially coming out of the trees.

  A few adults gasped. Sister Teddy Yetch ran up to us as fast as her old legs could carry her. Briant Willpts shuffled right behind her. And Paul, who was passing the afternoon arguing with members of P.I.G., came sidling up as well. He wouldn’t miss this for the world.

  “What’s going on here?” Briant asked.

  “I lost my companion,” I tried to explain.

  “How can you lose your companion?” Teddy asked. “He’s bigger than you are.”

  “Yes, how?” CleeDee snipped snidely as she approached.

  Grace tried to slip away from it all, but Teddy wouldn’t let her go.

  “Hold on a moment, young lady,” she scolded, and she grabbed Grace by the arm. “I think you got some explaining to do.”

  “I knew it,” Paul exclaimed. “I’ve been telling you all for months, and no one believed me. Will of the Underworld.”

  The little kids playing on the pioneer wagons stopped what they were doing to watch us adults act like children.

  “My companion got hurt and Grace was trying to help us,” I said, hoping to quiet Paul.

  “How condental of you,” Briant said.

  “That’s not a word,” Grace retorted.

  Briant’s ears sizzled. In all his years, no one had ever been so bold as to correct him. He had heard tell of folks whispering behind his back about his made-up words, but before now no one had actually challenged him to his face.

  “Why, you little . . . .” he said, stopping to think up a new word. But before his thought process could be completed, he was interrupted by Brother Heck.

  “Leave her be, Briant,” he said, stepping in front of us. “Where’s Elder Jorgensen?” he asked me.

  “Yes,” Paul hissed. “Where is your companion?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “I was hoping he was here. We had an accident and he disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Miss Flitrey asked in amazement. “Sounds like a story with holes.”

  “Holes,” the children all said in chorus, as if they were still in school.

  “I have been telling you people for months that your church is corrupt,” Paul raged. “And here is the main corrupter.” He pointed at me.

  “Calm yourself, Paul,” Brother Heck clipped.

  “Really,” I tried to explain. “I was—”

  A low moaning broke out about twenty feet away from us. We all turned that direction to look. I saw a hand rise above the tall grass and sort of wave. It was Elder Jorgensen’s. He was lying on the ground, completely hidden by the thick growth the untrampled parts of the meadow had to offer.

  I ran over and propped him up.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He gasped a few times and then licked his lips. “I was able to push the tree off,” he explained. “You know the one that was on my leg, the one that cracked?” He asked me as if it were so far back and so inconsequential that I had forgotten about it.

  I nodded yes.

  He went on. “Then I made a splint for my leg and fashioned myself a couple of crutches out of dead branches. I hobbled all the way back. Right before I got to the meadow, I ran out of steam. Crawled to this point here. I hope you’re not mad. You were gone so long, I thought you might be lost.”

  “Why would I be mad?” I asked.

  “For me taking off like that.”

  Elder Jorgensen was one faithful missionary.

  I saw Toby Carver take off running, most likely to fetch his Ace bandage. Brother Heck and I picked up Elder Jorgensen and helped him over to our home.

  Amidst it all, Grace was gone.

  “Shoot,” I said aloud as I laid my companion down on his bed.

  “I’ll be all right, Elder,” he comforted me. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  “I’m glad,” I replied.

  His leg looked bad. It was bent at a funny angle. Toby came and wrapped it with his bandage. While he was wrapping, he questioned me about being alone with Grace.

  “So you two were just helping your companion?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Yes.”

  “I guess we’ll have to take your word on that,” he added.

  It was no secret that the town talked about me and Grace occasionally, even though there was nothing to talk about. The story of her rescuing me all those months ago in the snow was a favorite to retell. I was okay with this, as long as no embellishment occurred. I had never done, and never would do, anything inappropriate in regards to Grace Heck. I was here to serve a mission. True, I had begun to refer to our mealtime prayers as “saying Grace,” but that was as close as I got to walking on the wild side.

  Toby finished wrapping Elder Jorgensen’s leg. Brother Heck and I laid him on a stretcher and carried him to Virgil’s Find.

  We only dropped him twice.

  25

  Boo

  Month Fifteen

  Elder Jorgensen was looked over by a competent doctor in Virgil’s Find. Prognosis: a bad break. We spe
nt the night near the hospital with the two full-time missionaries stationed there, Elder Bess and Elder Jepson. The next day Elder Jorgensen was driven back to Knoxville to heal. President Clasp had done some quick shuffling to find me a new companion. Elder Weeble and I returned to Thelma’s Way the following evening.

  Elder Weeble looked like an egg. He was short and compact. His head was tiny and his feet were big, giving him a tremendous sense of balance. Weeble wobbled, but he didn’t fall down—at least not physically. His spiritual balance was a different matter.

  He spent all his time talking about how he wasn’t worthy to be on a mission because he had done so many bad things before he came out. Oh, he was no real rebel. His pre-mission escapades consisted mainly of things like going to 7–11 during Sunday School and talking back to his parents.

  I felt Elder Weeble was just looking for attention and a way out of actually working on his mission. He pined about his girlfriend back home. He agonized over basic church doctrines, unsure of what he really believed. He didn’t like climbing hills, couldn’t teach a lesson if his life depended on it, and was horribly bothered by almost everyone in Thelma’s Way. We didn’t click.

  Most irritating of all, he had the habit of asking ridiculous questions on a regular basis: “How come we have to work today? Why do we always have to wear white shirts? Do you think they accidentally left the page about afternoon naps out of the Missionary Handbook?”

  Despite Elder Weeble, the branch was actually doing better than ever. I wasn’t vain enough to think it had anything to do with my leadership, but ever since I was made branch president, Pap Wilson had started coming out to church. And Todd Nodd, the town wino—who used to come to church only because it was a warm place away from his vicious, alcohol-intolerant wife—had even attended once while sober. He sat in the front row and asked questions to the speakers during Sacrament meeting.

  Plus, as Wad and Miss Flitrey became more and more serious about each other, Wad began attending the branch with her. The two of them looked quite cozy each week as they cuddled in their pew.

  Even Grace Heck had been making an appearance, wandering down from her hideout in the hills. Her presence made my Sundays more fulfilling, but whenever she got within three feet of me, everyone in the congregation watched us like hawks. She would smile, and I would nod, and the air around me would start to thin. I had told President Clasp all about her, and how I seemed to have these unexplainable feelings for her. I thought maybe he would play it safe and finally transfer me. He didn’t. I thought maybe he would command me to never think of her. He didn’t. He simply admonished me to do the job and serve as I knew I should. He also told me to make sure none of my subsequent companions conveniently broke their legs, giving me a chance to be alone with her again.

  Snow had fallen by mid-October that year, making it more difficult for us to get around. It was particularly treacherous crossing the Girth to see Teddy Yetch, but Teddy liked to have the missionaries in her home, and we liked to check up on her at least once a week.

  We were actually teaching Teddy’s neighbor in the hope of reactivating her. Sister Lando and Teddy had been good friends for years. She was small like Teddy, but heavier, and at least ten years younger. It seemed physically impossible for Sister Lando to talk without using her hands. She had gray hair and perpetual bad breath. She had bright hazel eyes and a pointed nose that seemed to collapse into itself at the tip. Elder Weeble speculated that over the years she had overused the expression “right on the tip of my nose” and, thanks to her talking so much with her hands, she had poked the tip of it in. Whatever the reason, it gave her a distinctive look.

  Sister Lando had been inactive long before Paul had ever gone to Rome and returned to tear the ward apart. Her reason for not coming out to church was simple: the Church didn’t respect the fact that she came from a long line of supposed witches. Sister Lando could not understand how a religion that was so big on families being together could forbid her to wear her great-great- grandmother’s pointy black hat to church. Sister Watson was allowed to wear her Easter bonnet, and Patty Heck received no reprimand whenever she donned her floral shawl. So why in the name of the good people of Salem couldn’t Sister Lando wear her wide-rimmed, extra pointy black hat without getting guff?

  Regardless of her ancestry, we wanted Sister Lando back at church. We needed her. I had told her that it still would not be appropriate for her to wear her hat in the chapel, but that she was welcome to wear it as she walked to and from the services. I even promised her that she could store it in one of the church closets for safekeeping. She found no comfort in this, seeing how Parley P. Pratt’s first edition Book of Mormon had been stolen from right off the pulpit. I told her no one would be interested in stealing a musty old black hat. She told me to bite my tongue lest she be forced to turn me into a prune.

  I laughed as if it were a joke. It was almost Halloween, after all, and everyone was getting into the spirit of things. The people of P.I.G. were leading the way. They had hit on a new money-making scheme and were busy making preparations for their first annual “Non-Satanic, Haunted Fun House.”

  Saints beware.

  They had staked out a spot in the woods next to the Watson’s house. Toby Carver had hauled in some two-by-fours and rigged up a little maze. He stapled up plastic tarps for walls. For a week now the spot had been off-limits to anyone without a P.I.G. pass. I had cautioned all the people involved about not making it too scary, seeing how little kids would be going through and we didn’t want to leave any of them emotionally scarred. Of course my words of caution did nothing but fall on deaf ears—except for Toby Carver, who asked if it was possible to make fake emotional scars out of relish and glue.

  One good thing had come out of this non-satanic haunted house so far. Sister Lando had an occasion on which to wear her witch hat. Of course Pap Wilson put up a fight, arguing that her hat sort of watered out the non-satanic part. Pap was acknowledged and then ignored. Sister Lando also helped Sister Watson make some of the decorations and loaned P.I.G. a number of her best brewing kettles.

  It was late afternoon that all-hallows-eve when Elder Weeble and I went to the boardinghouse to check for mail. We stepped inside, shaking off snow and wishing winter were ending instead of beginning. Elder Weeble got one letter from his girlfriend, and I received a cassette tape from my family. Pete Kennedy was working the counter at the boardinghouse. He was busy scooping flour from a big bag into a tiny container.

  “You guys going to the fun house?” he asked, dusting his hands off.

  “Probably,” I replied.

  Pete snickered.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Pete giggled.

  “Something’s funny,” my companion said, displaying his lack of patience for these people.

  “I just hope you two don’t get too scared,” Pete explained.

  “You’re leaving your gun at home, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Pete said mournfully. “Sister Watson said I’m not allowed to bring it to public gatherings any longer. I can’t even bring it to the pageant.”

  Elder Weeble scoffed. “You mean that play you guys have been laboring over forever?”

  “Yep,” Pete answered with pride, oblivious to the sarcasm in Elder Weeble’s voice. “Sister Watson just posted the parts. The rehearsals begin in the spring.”

  Pete pointed to the bulletin board. I walked over to take a look. Sister Watson would be playing the part of Drusa, and Bishop Watson was going to play a rather frail looking Parley P. Pratt. Narlette was going to be Thelma, and everyone else was listed as “insignificants.”

  “How appropriate.” Elder Weeble laughed.

  We took our mail and went home to prepare for the night’s festivities.

  Our home was really coming along, too. We had new windows to keep out the cold, and the week before, they had finally hooked up the electricity. It was so nice to have electric lighting again. We found a second-ha
nd microwave in Virgil’s Find. It worked great. We even had a small refrigerator where we could store food and keep our condiments consistently cold year round. If all went well, in the spring we would get running water. I hoped not to be here for that.

  I liked my branch president calling, and I really did have good feelings for this town, but I was becoming increasingly restless. I was feeling less like a missionary and more like a permanent fixture. I needed out of here and on to something else. It wasn’t right, me being here for so long. I would have considered it all a big mistake if not for the fact that President Clasp wrote and visited so often. Always he would reiterate how strongly he felt that I should stay right where I was. I kept thinking that there had to be someone here that only I could touch. So I had written out everyone’s name on a big sheet of paper and consistently prayed over them, hoping that heaven would show me the way. So far heaven had left me alone.

  I just wanted to be somewhere where we rode bikes and tracted outdoors. I wanted my mission to have two parts: the unusual part when I was put here, and the after-the-unusual part when I was put somewhere to serve as I had once envisioned I would.

  I hardly knew any of the other elders in the mission. I had seen nothing of Tennessee except for Thelma’s Way, Virgil’s Find, and a little bit of Knoxville. My after-mission slides were going to be sorely lacking—“and here’s another shot of the rotting covered wagons, this time in the snow . . .”

  “Do we have to wear our ties tonight?” Elder Weeble asked as we finished up our soup.

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “Why would we wear ties to a haunted house?” he whined.

  “Because we’re missionaries.”

  “But it’s Halloween. The whole point is not to look like what you are.” Elder Weeble was speaking slowly, as if I might have trouble understanding.

  “Forget it, Elder,” I said.

  Elder Weeble put his soup bowl in the big tub of water we had by the refrigerator. “I don’t see why there has to be so many rules. Men are that they might have joy,” he said, quoting his favorite scripture, and the only one he knew.

  “Take it up with President Clasp,” I said.