by Jan Karon
“Wh-what prayer is ’at?”
“Thy will be done.”
Squawking, the guineas chased each other around the barn in their annual zeal to make keets.
“You mean jis’ let ‘im do whatever ’e w-wants t’ do?” Sammy was plenty irritated by the idea.
“That’s it.Whatever He wants to do. Because what He wants to do is what’s best for you. He can’t do things any other way—that’s how He’s wired, you might say.”
“Wh-what if I’d ask ‘im t’ f-find Kenny?”
“He knows exactly where Kenny is, of course.
“If ’e’s s’ good an’ all, s-seems like ‘e’d s-send ’im on.
“While we’re at it, let’s not forget what He’s already done—we’ve got Dooley; we found Jessie; we found Poo. We found you.”
He remembered his first sight of Sammy Barlowe, walking along a creek bed, his red hair a coronet of fire in the afternoon light.
“Four out of five, Sammy. Four out of five! Seems to me God has been very hard at work on the Barlowe case.”
Sammy tore open a package of seeds. “I ain’t prayin’ nothin’. I tried it one time; I didn’ g-git what I’d call a answer.”
“It may not be the answer you’re hoping for, but you can count on it to be the right answer.
Sammy looked at him, his eyes hard. “I ain’t goin’ t’ do it.”
“That’s OK,” said Father Tim. “I’ll do it. And Cynthia. And Dooley.” And Emma, he thought, and Buck and Pauline and Marian and Sam and Agnes and Clarence ...
They had set up the table and covered it with a rose-colored cloth, which gave an uplifting new look to the small nave.
“We’ll leave it there, rain or shine!” said the vicar. “Put our pew bulletins on it, and maybe a few books—start a lending library!”
“And won’t a vase of tulips look lovely on that old cloth? Jessie and I used it at the schoolhouse; it’s lain in a drawer these many years.” She looked around the simple room with pleasure. “It’s no venerable edifice with a Norman tower and stained glasswork, but it’s wonderful, isn’t it, Father?”
“It is, Agnes!” Indeed, he was ardently proud of Holy Trinity, though to some in his calling, it would be a mere crumb, an offense ...
“Ready for a cup of tea?”
“More than ready.”
The rain drummed steadily on the tin roof as Agnes withdrew the thermos from the basket, set two mugs on the seat of the front pew, and filled them with the steaming tea.
“I’ve been praying about it, Father, and I’m ready to tell you the rest of my story. If you’re ready to hear it.”
“Agnes, Agnes! Surely you jest.” Rain on a tin roof. The smell of evergreens and leaf mold, beeswax and lemon polish. All that and a story, too. “Your Town Car had given out,” he said, leaning back with the warm mug, “and you bought a truck.”
She sat beside him, inhaling the scent of the tea.
“I’m afraid we’d tried to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse! Our old Town Car was a pathetic sight when we finally sold it! It went for forty dollars to a family who removed the interior fittings and used it for a storage unit. In their front yard, I might add! Years later, they began stringing it with Christmas lights—it became quite a tradition in these hills.”
He chuckled. He could picture it as clearly as if he’d seen it with his own eyes.
“Quint Severs had never worked on trucks, so he sent me to a man who did. Rumor had it that he was something of a genius with all things mechanical; gifted, in a way. Unfortunately, our truck gave us many problems—we sometimes found ourselves as impoverished as our parishioners.
“I refused to ask my father for money; it was imperative to both Jessie and me that we depend upon the Lord for His providence. We were the poorest diocese in the state, and there was no reliable stream of funds coming from Asheville.
“Our new mechanic worked wonders. It was as if he’d joined our team, and was as eager as we to keep the truck going so we could ferry people to the doctor and the hospital—even to school.”
Agnes looked up to the window above the altar. “Ah, Father ...”
She turned to him and he saw, perhaps for the first time, the full span of years in her countenance. “I feel I should make a very long story short.
“I fell in love for the first time. With a man who was not a believer, and indeed, had ways about him which were ...”
He watched her select her words with some care.
“... coarse and cruel.
“We became ... intimate. What can I say to you to defend my behavior? Nothing. I lost my head; I lost my heart. I was forty-five years old.”
Agnes sat with her cup in her hands, as if turned to marble. Rain darkened the windows.
“I was devastated, of course, when I learned that I was ...”
Agnes Merton was of another world and time, in which such truths were scarcely uttered.
“I understand,” he said.
“John Newton wrote, ‘Guilt has untuned my voice; the serpent’s sin-envenomed sting has poisoned all my joys.’
“I could barely function. I felt that everything I stood for, everything I had done in His service, had come to less than nothing. I kept it from Jessie for as long as I possibly could, but my great distress could not be hidden. She demanded that I tell her everything. The news was in many ways as crushing to her as to me.
“She could not forgive me, Father.
“In the midst of all this, I was deeply concerned about my age. In those days, a woman in her forties was likely to be at risk in ... bearing a child. And then we learned that the church and schoolhouse would soon be closed. No funds were available to keep them open.
“The world quite literally crashed around us; I felt myself wholly responsible before God. I had failed Jessie and Little Bertie. I had failed this parish. And certainly I had failed the Savior. As church doors closed throughout these mountains, I even believed I had caused God to punish the church for my sins. That was nonsense, of course, but then I was beset by every guilt imaginable. I became the dry bones of Ezekiel’s field, with no one to prophesy His mercy and grace.”
She sipped her tea. “The fifty-first psalm. Do you know it well, Father?”
“Well, indeed. During a dark hour in my own life, I learned to recite it from memory.”
“Could we say it now?”
Together, they spoke the words of the psalmist.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness;
In your great compassion, blot out my offenses.
Wash me through and through from my wickedness
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Against you only have I sinned ... ”
Above the gorge, the clouds began to lift; a shaft of sunlight shone upon the ridge.
“For behold, you look for truth deep within me,
And will make me understand wisdom secretly.
Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure; Wash me, and I shall be clean indeed.
Make me hear of joy and gladness,
That the body you have broken may rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
And blot out my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
And renew a right spirit within me ... ”
“During that long Lenten season,” she said, “those words were ever on my lips. What I couldn’t know then, is that He did all that I implored Him to do. But much time would pass before I could accept His love and forgiveness.
“My father knew how happy I’d been here. And when the diocese closed this and so many other church properties, he insisted on buying the schoolhouse for me, and the attached hundred acres.
“This posed yet another bitter conflict. I didn’t wish to remain on the ridge; I wished to flee this place forever.Yet I couldn’t refuse such a generous gift. I supposed that I might one day
sell it, and be given the grace to forget all that had happened here.
“Jessie took Little Bertie and went back to her family. She was given a mission church in the west. The parting was almost unbearable—Jessie’s coldness toward me, and Little Bertie clinging to me as to life itself.”
He prayed for her silently as she paused, waiting to go on.
“I remembered hearing of a woman in Chicago who took in young women who ...
“Grace Monroe was willing to take me in. I locked up the schoolhouse and asked Quint to watch over it. The truck was sold. I never spoke of my condition to ... the father, and certainly not to my own father.
“I arrived in Chicago with three hundred and seventy-four dollars and a box of clothing.
“Grace was elderly and I was the last to enjoy the privilege of her wonderful compassion. I cooked for her and dusted her antique porcelains, and made myself as useful as I knew how.
“When Clarence was born, she asked us to stay. She loved Clarence very tenderly; when he was yet a tot, she taught him to be gentle with all that he touched.
“She began this patient instruction by giving him a rare piece of early Staffordshire, a milkmaid with a brown cow. She taught him to lift the piece with great care and dust beneath it.
“Over and over again, he did this under her watchful eye, with never a chip or a crack, Father, and he was but a toddler!
“All that love pouring into him is today poured out into his beautiful bowls and animals and walking canes.”
“Cynthia and I look forward to seeing his work on Sunday.”
“Have I worn you thin?” she asked, looking worn herself.
“Never. But perhaps we should save the rest of your story for another time. I feel this has taxed you.”
“It taxes me still further to withhold it. Yes, there is more. Much more. But now we must talk about our teaching on Sunday! Thank you, Father, for hearing me. Your compassion is a great gift.”
He signed the three words he’d signed to Cynthia that morning.
Her eyes brimmed with tears of relief as she signed them back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Covered Dish
The contributions of early arrivals had been placed on the rose-colored cloth.
In the center of the table, Miss Martha’s German chocolate cake was displayed on a footed stand next to Lily’s three-layer triumph. Also present were Lloyd’s foil-covered baked beans, Cynthia’s potato salad made from Puny’s recipe, Father Tim’s scandal to the Baptists—a baked ham with bourbon sauce, Agnes’s macaroni and cheese, and Granny’s stuffed eggs.
“Granny,” said the vicar, “how are stuffed eggs different from deviled?”
“Th’ diff’rence is, I don’t call ’em deviled,” Granny declared. “They’s enough devilment in this world.”
“Amen!” he said.
At the far end of the folding table, the vicar’s surprise gift stood tall and gleaming, perking into the air an aroma fondly cherished in church halls everywhere.
“French roast,” he told Lloyd, tapping the percolator. “Freshly ground. Full bore.”
“Hallelujah!” said Lloyd, who didn’t think much of church coffee, generally speaking.
Sammy had cut an armload of budding branches from the surrounding woods, and delivered them to Cynthia for a table arrangement. Removing himself from the fray, the vicar trooped into the churchyard to greet new arrivals and contemplate the view with Granny. A chill wind had followed the long rain; the ocean of mountains shone clear, bright, and greening.
“Robert! Good morning to you!”
Robert wiped his right hand on his pant leg before shaking.
“Thank y’ f’r th’ eggs, I didn’ bring nothin’ f’r th’ dinner.”
“No need, we have plenty. Can you sing, Robert?”
“Ain’t never tried.”
“Try today! We’ve got to crank up the singing around here, to help keep us warm. Just get in behind me and go for it. I’m not much to listen to, but I can keep us on key at any rate.
“Sparkle! You’re the very breath of spring.”
“Yeller, blue, green, purple, an’ pink, topped off by a fleece jacket! If anybody’s havin’ a tacky party today, I want to be th’ winner!”
“Where’s Wayne?”
“Down on his back, rollin’ around under a piece of junk he calls a car.”
“Tell him to get up here, we need his fine baritone.”
“If Wayne Foster ever shows ‘is face up here ag’in, I’ll drop over. He didn’ know doodleysquat about what was goin’ on last Sunday. He thought your kneelers was somethin’ to prop his feet up on.”
“A good many Episcopalians think the same! What is that heavenly aroma?”
Sparkle held forth her foil-covered contribution. “Meat loaf!” she declared. “My mama’s recipe.You will flat out die when you taste it.”
“A terrible price to pay, but count me in.”
As Agnes stepped outside to deposit a daddy longlegs on a patch of moss, they saw Rooter coming at a trot from the laurels.
“Which reminds me,” Agnes told the vicar. “The schoolhouse facilities are open; you may wish to make an announcement.”
“Looky here, Miss Agnes.”
Rooter signed to Agnes, the first and second fingers of his right hand gesturing toward his eyes.
“Why, Rooter Hicks!” she said, clearly pleased.
“Y’ know what I jis’ said?” he asked the vicar.
“Not a clue.”
“I said, ‘See y’ later, man.’”
“How did you learn that?” asked Agnes.
“I seen it in a book.”
“A book!”
“At th’ lib’ary at school.They got a whole lot of books on hand talkin’. With pictures. Looky here ag’in,” he said, slightly curling four fingers, extending his thumb, and making a motion at his chin. “You know what ‘at’s sayin’?” he asked Agnes.
“You’re saying ‘Watch!’”
“Yeah. I’m goin‘t’ use ‘at ’un when I want t’ watch Clarence work on ’is bowls an’ all.”
“You’re smart as a whip!”
“I ain’t smart,” said Rooter, offended.
“Quick, then,” she declared. “You’re very quick. And in any case,” Agnes signed her words as she spoke, “I’m tickled pink.”
“I’m goin’ t’ learn s’more of ’at stuff. I brung one of them books home.”
“He don’t like t’ bring books home,” said Granny. “Seein’ as it must be special, I looked in it m’self.”
“Well done!” said the vicar.
“But I couldn’ make hide n’r hair of it.”
Rooter’s eyes brightened. “I’ll teach y’!”
Father Tim sat down on the wall. “I’ve got an idea, Rooter. What if we put you in charge of teaching the congregation one simple hand sign every Sunday? Something everyone can do. That way, we’ll all learn how to talk with Clarence.”
Rooter looked astounded. “Y’ mean stand up in front of all ’em people an’ do what I jis’ done?”
“Yes. Don’t you think so, Agnes?”
“I do!”
“Next Sunday, you could teach ‘How are you doing, man’—which you already know.”
“Yep.” Rooter signed what the vicar had said.
“The following Sunday, you could teach ‘See you later, man.’ And so on.Would that work for you?”
“I ain’t standin’ up in front of no people. No way.”
“Why not?” asked Father Tim.
“‘Cause ...”—Rooter made a face—“’Cause they’d look at me.”
“Right. Looking at you is the way they’d learn to talk to Clarence. Right now, the only people who talk to Clarence are his mother ... and you. And maybe me ... but only a little. Three people.”
Rooter pondered this, then looked up at Agnes.
“You’d have t’ do it with me.”
“I’d be honored,” she said. “Come
now, it’s time for worship.”
The vicar saw his patient and affable crucifer waiting for him with the hand-carved cross. He signed the three words to Clarence, who grinned broadly and signed back. To Lloyd, standing by to ring the bell, he gave a thumbs-up.
Bong ...
Bong ...
Bong ...
The sound shimmered out from the tower, across the gorge and dappled ridges.
Processing behind the cross to the altar, he realized he was missing Sissie.
“Thirty minutes,” he said, checking his watch, “and you re on your way.
“Thanks to everyone who prepared nourishment for today’s table of fellowship. I’ve had more than my share of such holy meals, and must tell you that today’s offering was as good as it gets.
“I’d also like to thank those who enjoyed what was prepared and said so—that’s an important contribution in itself, as any cook can tell you.
“Agnes informs me that this was Holy Trinity’s first official dinner on the grounds in ... how many years do you think, Rooter?”
“A hundred!”
“Good guess, Rooter. Miss Martha?”
“Forty-three years!”
“Forty-three years! And isn’t it wondrous, that at the time of His blessed resurrection, Holy Trinity should also rise out of death into new life? Alleluia! Or, as Granny might say, hallelujah!”
Startled by unexpected recognition, Granny involuntarily lifted her hand and waved at the vicar.
“I grew up, primarily, in the Baptist Church, and love that pronunciation as well. However you say it—and both ways are correct—it feels good to again utter that glorious word of praise. And speaking of words ...
“This morning, the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians worshipped in a sanctuary. You worshipped this morning in a nave, and you entered the nave through a narthex.
“I see that Lloyd and Robert are sitting on the gospel side. And Agnes and the rest of you are sitting on the epistle side.
“These and other unique words—and traditions—make us a little different at Holy Trinity. Before Agnes and I talk next Sunday about our prayer book and, for example, the great help you’ll find in the rubrics, we’ll talk today about this building, God’s house—which I believe we’ll all come to love as a true home ...”
