by Jan Karon
“Hit’s m’ whistlepig.”
Whoa. He forced himself to remain seated.
Jubal pulled up his beard, put his hand inside his shirt, and withdrew a plump, brown groundhog with beady eyes and fossorial feet.
“I done took it in f’r a house pet; hit’s a orphan.”
“Does it bite?”
“Dern right; hit’s wild, hain’t it? A fox or coyote must’ve broke up its den. I been out a-lookin’ f’r clover an’ dandelion all mornin’. Livin’ by y’rself hain’t all roses ... but it don’t have t’ be all thorns, neither.” Jubal scratched the creature’s head.
“He’s a mighty lucky little fellow.”
“Hit’s a female.”
“Aha. What’s her name?”
“I been thinkin’ I might call ’er Miss Agnes.”
The vicar had a good laugh. “I’m sure she’d be honored.”
“Who? M’ pig or Miss Agnes?”
“Both, I’d say. So, Jubal, what was in the bag I brought over here?”
“Trotters. They was pretty good, if ye like ‘at type of rations. I hain’t eat trotters since I worked at th’ sawmill.”
He scratched his head. “I brought you ... trotters?”
“You give ’em t’ me out’n y’r own hand!”
“But what, exactly, are trotters?”
“Pigs’ feet!” Jubal was plainly aggravated by such ignorance. “Lord he’p a monkey!”
Lord help a monkey, indeed. “Well, need to get moving pretty soon. Just wanted to say we’re growing pretty fast up at Holy Trinity, and planning a homecoming at the end of October. Everybody’s welcome. And maybe we can round up descendants of the people who went to church there in the early days. You’ll have plenty of time to think about it, but we sure hope you’ll join us.”
“I cain’t be settin’ aroun’ in a church house not believin’ in Almighty God! Lightnin’d strike me dead as a doornail.”
“You don’t believe in God?”
“Nossir, I don’t, an’ if ’e ever comes messin’ aroun’ here, ‘e’ll be lookin’ down th’ barrel of m’ pump gun.
“Well, then, I doubt you’ll have any trouble from Him.”
“An’ don’t ye f’rgit it,” the old man warned.
He creaked up from the sofa. “Hope you’ll enjoy the eggs, Jubal. I know how you like to stir up something on that fine stove of yours.”
“I didn’ cook a bite last e’enin’. Hank Triplett sent a plate from ’is mama; hit was loin of deer meat, with sweet taters an’ a chunk of cornbread big as a man’s hand.”
“When you finished that good supper, did you believe there was a cook?”
Jubal studied the question for a moment, and put his groundhog back in his shirt. “You ain’t tryin’ t’ trick me, are ye?”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t ye be tryin’ t’ trick me, or I’ll set Miss Agnes on ye.”
Father Tim laughed. “Which one?”
The groundhog poked its head through Jubal’s white beard.
“This ’un!” said Jubal.
Sissie was helping Cynthia in the kitchen, and he had stolen into the library for a breather. Dooley should be leaving anytime to fetch Lace from Mitford.
He was standing at the bookcase when he heard his boy coming along the hall at a clip, probably to pick up the car keys.
Dooley stood before him as if frozen.
“What happened?You’re white as a sheet.”
“I called him a bad name. A really bad name.
“Who?”
“Blake.”
“Why?”
“He argues about everything; I couldn’t stand it any longer. I let him have it.”
“Unbelievable.” This was not good news.
“He’s an arrogant, self-righteous ...”
“That may be. But that’s no excuse.” He was disappointed in Dooley. Miss Sadie, dadgummit, don’t look at me; he knows better.
“But I shouldn’t have called him what I did. Actually, I wanted to punch ’im; I had to really hold back. But no matter how blind he is to the truth, I shouldn’t have said what I said. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll apologize to him, and I apologize to you, too. I know you hate this kind of stuff.”
There. The boy had made a mistake and was apologizing to all concerned. Dooley was human, for heaven’s sake, what was he waiting for? For his son to be canonized? It was time.
He let his breath out, like the long, slow release of air from a tire gone wrong.
“Let’s sit down, son. Take the wing chair.”
“That’s yours.
“Not really. Right now, it’s yours.”
“You want me to sit down now or go and do what I have to do with Blake?”
“Do what you have to do with Blake, and get back here fast, I have something important to tell you.” He could hardly wait another minute; the waiting was over. But where to start? He’d had this conversation a hundred times in his imagination ...
He sat and prayed and stared out the window and scratched his dog behind the ears.
Dooley came back, looking relieved. “He took it pretty well; he knows he’s hard to get along with. If he’d just listen ...”
“How would you like to have your own practice when you finish school?”
Dooley sat down and glanced at his watch. “Unless somebody leaves me a million bucks ...”
Dooley eyed him, grinning.
“Don’t look at me, buddyroe. I am definitely not your man on that deal. How would you like to have the Meadowgate practice? Hal’s retiring in five years, just one year short of when you get your degree.”
“Meadowgate would be, like, a dream. It’s perfect, it’s everything I could ever want, but it’ll take years to make enough money to ...”
“What if you had the money to buy it?” Why was he asking these questions? Why couldn’t he get on with it? He’d held on to his secret for so long, he was having trouble letting it go.
“Well, yes,” said Dooley, “but I don’t even know what Hal would sell it for. Probably, what do you think, half a million? I’ve done a little reading on that kind of thing, but ...” Dooley looked suspicious, even anxious. “Why are we talking about this?”
“Since he’s not planning to include the house and land, I’d guess less than half a million. Maybe three or four hundred thousand for the business and five acres. And if you wanted, Hal could be a consultant. But only if you wanted.”
“Yeah, and I could fire Blake. Anyway, nice dream.” Dooley checked his watch.
“Let me tell you about a dream Miss Sadie had. It was her dream to see one Dooley Barlowe be all he can be, to be all God made him to be. She believed in you.”
Dooley’s scalp prickled; the vicar’s heart pounded.
“She left you what will soon be two million dollars.” He had wondered for years how the words would feel in his mouth.
There was a long silence. Dooley appeared to have lost his breath; Father Tim thought the boy might faint.
“Excuse me.” Dooley stood and bolted from the library.
“You don’t look so good,” Father Tim said when Dooley returned. “What happened?”
“I puked.”
“Understandable.”
Dooley thumped into the wing chair, stupefied.
“What do you think?” asked Father Tim.
“I can’t think. There’s no way I can think. You aren’t kidding me, are you?”
“I wouldn’t kid about these numbers.”
“It makes me sad that I can’t thank her. I mean, why did she do it? I was just a scrawny little kid who cleaned out her attic and hauled her ashes. Why would she do it?”
“I can’t make it any simpler. She believed in you. »
“But why?”
“Maybe because the man she loved had been a boy like you—from the country, trying to make it on his own; smart, very smart, but without any resources whatsoever. It so happens that Willard Porter made it anyway, as you w
ould, also. But she wanted you to have resources.”
Tears brimmed in Dooley’s eyes. “Man.”
“You want to go out in the yard and holler—or anything?”
“I feel ...” Dooley turned his gaze away.
“You feel?”
“Like I want to bust out cryin’.”
“You can do that,” he said. “I’ll cry with you.”
Cynthia knocked lightly and opened the door. “I can feel it.You know.”
Dooley stood. “Yeah.Yes, ma’am.”
“And the two of you are bawling about it?”
Father Tim nodded, wiping his eyes.
“You big dopes.” She went to Dooley and hugged him and drew his head down and kissed his cheek. “Remember me in my old age.”
Dooley cackled.
The air in the room released.
Father Tim put his handkerchief in his pocket.
A new era had begun.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A Living Fire
The preacher at Green Valley Baptist Church walked out to the road sign carrying a black box filled with metal letters. His dog, Malachi, trotted behind.
The preacher shaded his eyes and looked at the noon sky. After a dry June and July, the valley had experienced heavy September rains. Gulley washers! But since early October, they’d been steadily drying out again, and no indication of a drop to come.
To his mind, people were misguided to wait ’til a water shortage became a drought and showed up in the newspaper headlines. This Sunday, two days hence, he planned to insert a prayer for rain, even if some would count the petition premature.
He removed all the black sans serif letters from the sign and dropped them into their compartments in the metal box.
Though he’d planned to put up one thing, here he was fixing to put up another. Exercise daily, walk with the Lord was the message he’d had in mind. Then he’d gone and changed his mind, which he had every right to do, seeing as he’d prayed about it. This one would be more thoughtful, you might say, without a lick of humor in it. He’d get a fuss or two from somebody, but he always got a fuss or two from somebody.
He chuckled as he bent over the box, and selected an L.
“Malachi, are you still pretty good at spellin’?”
His dog did not reply.
“Writin’ that last book of the Ol’ Testament must have wore you out; you said all you had to say, looks like.”
He dipped into the box and brought forth an O.
“I been meanin’ to tell you that I especially noted what you set down in th’ third chapter. ‘Then they that feared th’ Lord spoke often to one another: and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrances was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.’ ”
He selected a V.
“I’d like to think my name might make it into His book of remembrances; how about you?”
In a while, he wiped his perspiring face and stood back to see what he’d accomplished.
LOVE IS A
Malachi rolled on his side and slept; crickets sang in the dry grass.
A half mile up the road from Green Valley Baptist, collard, mustard, and turnip greens thrived among pumpkins, onions, and winter squash in Sammy Barlowe’s garden. Working off water from the pond, a yellow sprinkler baptized its autumnal domain as an odor of rotted sheep manure rose in the vapor from mulched beds.
On Wilson’s Ridge, Lloyd Goodnight and Clarence Merton were drilling holes for screws under the eaves of the church roof, to hang a painted banner for Sunday morning. The growl of the drill echoed off the surrounding woods; Agnes heard it from the schoolhouse, where she was polishing the brass altar vases.
In the nave, Cynthia Kavanagh, Dooley Kavanagh, Sammy Barlowe, Sparkle Foster, Rooter Hicks, the McKinney sisters, Clarence Merton, Lloyd Goodnight, and their vicar were in the final hours of Holy Trinity’s first annual wax-off. The pulpit, the altar table, the altar railing, the four wooden folding chairs, and every pew were enduring a vigorous polish with beeswax.
“I hope nobody ever gets a notion to wax these floors,” said Miss Martha. “There ought to be a law against waxin’ a church floor.”
“There ought t’ be a law,” said Miss Mary.
“Bess Sawyer always sat in the back row at the Methodists, but one mornin’ after the floors were waxed, she shot right by me and ended up at the pulpit. We thought Mr. Greer had given an altar call.”
Clarence volunteered to unscrew the ceiling fixture, dump the bugs out, and hang it again; Rooter volunteered to hold the ladder while he did it. Everyone reckoned the bugs to be historic.
“I cain’t do nothin’ but set an’ talk,” said Granny, who had come for the social aspect of this affair. She had propped her foot, which still troubled her, on a kneeler.
Roy Dale and Gladys sat by her side, chewing bubblegum and watching the hive of activity. Granny gave them the once-over.
“You young ‘uns’re awful dirty.Y’ better git a bath ’fore you come in here on Sunday.”
“We warsh in th’ waterfall.”
“That’s a good place t’ do it. I’ve warshed in th’ waterfall, m‘self, a time or two. Are y’ usin’ soap, that’s th’ question?”
“We ain’t got none.”
“You ride with us when Mr. Goodnight takes me‘n’ Rooter home. I’ll give y’ a bar.”
No comment.
“Say thank ye.”
“Thank ye.”
“Y’r mighty welcome.”
“Hey, R-Rooter, what’s y’r h-hand s-sign f’r Sunday?”
“I cain’t show y’, hit’s a secret.” Rooter appeared proud to be asked, and prouder still that he wasn’t at liberty to reveal this information.
Father Tim set his wax container and rag on a pew and fiddled with the stove door. He opened it, then shut it; opened it, and shut it again. Cranky! he thought, as something so august was entitled to be. “They don’t make ’em like this anymore,” he said to whoever was in earshot.
A fellow from the valley had worked with Clarence for two days to reinstall the great iron behemoth, and Holy Trinity’s vicar had stepped up to the plate and personally oiled it down, black as pitch from stem to stern. Then he and the installer and Clarence and Agnes had a cup of tea and enjoyed the test fire they’d built in its bulging fire box.They’d even walked outside to watch the hickory smoke roll from the chimney like exhaust from a locomotive. Snatched by a fall wind, it vanished above the gorge.
“Drawin’ good,” said the installer.
Father Tim had inhaled deeply, intoxicated by a fragrance that resonated back to his early childhood. Indeed, the old stove would be their thurible.
Cynthia rode home in the red pickup with Dooley and Sammy, each scented with beeswax; the vicar hung a left on the road by the creek, in the direction of Lambert.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, son. What’s up?”
“We won’t be coming out for dinner. Lace and I are taking Sammy and the kids for pizza and a movie.”
“Too bad.You’ll miss our okra stew.”
“I’m really grievin’ over that. Glad you’re using your cell phone.”
“Feels good to catch up with the rest of the world.” He didn’t mention that he used it primarily to talk with Dooley, and maybe four times in as many months to phone Cynthia when he was batting around Mitford.
“You and Sammy be careful coming home, you know that stretch by ...”
“Right.”
“Have we found out whether Lace will be with us for Christmas?”
“Yes, sir.The Harpers definitely have to go to Dallas for three days; she’d like to stay with us, if that’s still OK.”
“That’s great. Better watch yourself in that red truck, I’ve seen a few police cars parked in the bushes on ...”
“Got it, Dad.”
“We love you, buddy.”
“Love you back.”
He stretched his legs, li
king the warmth of the kitchen fire on what his father had called his sock feet.
Oh, the peace of a job well done—Holy Trinity was ready for the big event; they were polished to the nines. And, since he’d written his sermon on Wednesday, he’d gained the un-frayed liberty of Saturday.
“Now that your calendar’s done, Kavanagh, why don’t we find some trouble to get into tomorrow?”
“I haven’t been in trouble for ages; I’d love that!”
“What sort of trouble would you prefer?”
“Maybe ... something to do with antiques; I’d love a little table with a drawer to go by your chair at home. We could dash into Mitford, and see what Andrew has these days. Or, walking in the woods and listening to leaves crunch underfoot, and finding the waterfall Granny told us about.”
“I’ll arrange everything. Truck or car?”
“Truck.”
“Morning, afternoon, or full day?”
“Full day.”
“Lunch in a basket or in a restaurant?”
“In a basket.”
“Consider it done. The okra smells good.”
“It’s all yours, darling.”
His wife wouldn’t touch stewed okra. He felt it his sworn duty to eat all that Sammy had planted and Lily had frozen—which was enough to last through March, if he was persistent.
Cynthia opened the oven door and checked the roasting chicken; the scent of rosemary and lemon infused the air. “You left Hope’s letter for me to read, but if you’d read it aloud, that would be even better.”
He went to the table where he’d left the letter.
“By the way, Timothy, you’ve been the cat that ate the canary for days on end; there are feathers in your mouth.”
“Is that right?” He sat down and took the folded sheets from the blue envelope.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way I could finagle it out of you, this thing you have up your sleeve?”
He laughed. “You’re quite right not to suppose it. ‘Dear Father Tim and Cynthia...
“ ’When I asked the innkeeper for stationery, she told me that hardly anyone writes letters on their honeymoon.Yes, I said, but the people to whom I’m writing gave my husband and me the moon and the stars. That explains it, then, she said, and smiled.
