At Home in Mitford

  “Jewels Missing from Museum Exhibition,” he read silently, without any special interest. “Last night, as the fund-raising gala got under way in the new wing of the Sonningham, an armed guard discovered that a priceless array of antique royal jewels had been stolen while he stood within feet of the glass case.

  “ ‘I stepped away for perhaps a minute and a half, to see what was making a rattling noise in the skylight,’ said Nigel Hadleigh, 62, of Armed Forces, Inc., a private security firm. ‘When I looked back at the case, the jewels were gone.’

  “Investigators so far have no clue to the theft, nor any suspects. There were no fingerprints on the case, which, until 9:30 p.m. on the first night of the museum’s fund-raising effort, contained rare jewels from all of the British Isles, including a necklace once worn by Princess Louise.

  “ ‘We’re dreadfully embarrassed,’ said Museum Director Wilfred Cappman. ‘Whatever will we say to the queen?’ ”

  Ah, there’s the rub! thought the rector.

  Hoppy came out of the restroom and peered into the office. “I need to talk to you pretty soon. But this time,” he said, “I’ll let you write the prescription.”

  Strike while the iron is hot! he thought. “How about Thursday at the Grill? That’s Percy’s day for salmon croquettes.”

  “Don’t be late,” warned the village doctor, grinning.

  As he finished washing his hands, he heard laughter on the other side of the restroom wall. It was Cynthia Coppersmith. Obviously, she found moles very, very amusing, which was the oddest mark of character he had recently observed.

  When he came home, he discovered one of his pie plates on the back step, and in it, a square envelope.

  It contained a watercolor of Barnabas, which was so lifelike it might have barked. A note tucked into the envelope read, “Thanks so much for the kindness you’ve shown a stranger in your midst. Cynthia.”

  “Truly amazing,” he said, looking at the watercolor with rapt fascination.

  “Your sermon was real good yesterday,” Emma said on Monday morning.

  There’s obviously no accounting for tastes, thought the rector, who recalled that a baby cried throughout the service, a squirrel chewed something behind the wall, and a lens from his glasses had dropped into the Bible as he read the gospel message.

  “I saw you at the art show,” she said, “but when I finally got over to where you were standin’, you’d up and left.”

  “Yes, well . . . how’s Harold?”

  “Work, work, work. Do this, do that. Fix the roof. Paint the porch. Change the oil. Mulch up his corncobs. That’s the way the Baptists do, you know.”

  “Is that right?”

  “You don’t ever see Episcopalians mulching up their corncobs.”

  “Don’t have any to mulch up.”

  “I guess.”

  Emma took her ledger out of the top drawer, along with a locked box containing Sunday’s offering.

  “Seems to me your new neighbor was on your heels at the art show.”

  “My neighbor . . . oh, yes, you mean Miss Coppersmith.”

  “I do mean her, that’s right. Everywhere you turned, she turned. It was like ice dancin’.”

  “Didn’t you have anything better to do than watchdog your preacher?”

  “First thing you know, there’ll be more of those cat books in the stores. Like, Violet Goes to Church, Violet Visits the Rector . . .”

  “Emma, don’t push your luck.”

  “Didn’t Miss Rose look tarted up?”

  “Quite.”

  “And Uncle Billy, what’s he goin’ to do with all that money?”

  “Hard telling.”

  A sudden wind moaned around the little stone building, rattling the windows. They looked at each other.

  “They’re calling for snow tonight,” he announced.

  “Maybe I should marry Harold before spring, after all,” she said.

  Before Pearly McGee died, she had given him a check for $1,456.00.

  “Use it to make somebody happy,” she had told him. “That’s what I want, is somebody to be happy.”

  He thought it would make one Dooley Barlowe very happy, indeed, if his red bicycle could be sitting under the Christmas tree.

  Dooley had earned a hundred and eight dollars, and needed that much again to pay the layaway balance on the red mountain bike.

  Perhaps what he should do, he mused, is give fifty-four dollars of his own money and match it with fifty-four from Pearly’s “discretionary fund.”

  He mentioned it to Emma.

  “I don’t know about that. Maybe he ought to work for the whole thing.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “He’s hot-headed. Workin’ for it might cool ’im off.”

  After Emma left, he called the bicycle store in Wesley. Yes, they could make a delivery to Mitford before Christmas.

  When he told Puny that the red bicycle would be coming to hide in the garage, he thought she’d be delighted. She wasn’t. “I hope you know what you’re doin’,” she said, flatly.

  On Tuesday, he had breakfast with Olivia Davenport, and allowed her to drive him to the office in a rain so heavy they could scarcely see the lights of oncoming cars along Main Street.

  “Did you hear what happened at the lay readers meeting last night?” Emma asked as he removed his raincoat.

  “Esther Bolick did her impersonation of the bishop?”

  “Worse than that. Somebody stole her famous orange marmalade cake out of the parish hall fridge.”

  “Stole it?”

  “Just cracked open that cake carrier and cleaned it out, crumbs an’ all.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Everybody brought a little somethin’ for refreshments. After meetin’ in the nursery where it was warm, they went to the kitchen to pour tea, and the cake was gone. Hilda Lassister said she’d been waitin’ two years for a taste of that marmalade cake, and when they couldn’t find it, she said she like to cried.”

  He scratched his head. “I don’t understand why they couldn’t find it.”

  “The point,” she said impatiently, “is that it wasn’t in the refrigerator where Esther left it. It was gone. Kaput. Zip. Outta there.”

  “They put the cake in the refrigerator and went back after the meeting and it was gone?”

  “That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. But whoever stole it didn’t even touch Marge Houck’s pineapple upside down.”

  “Now there’s something I can understand,” he said.

  On Wednesday evening, he took a shower and dressed, and prepared to visit his new neighbor in her tiny house next door. Cynthia Coppersmith had done as promised and invited him to dinner. And the invitation, it seemed to him, was perfectly timed.

  The last of his Rector’s Meatloaf was gone, and good riddance. To his chagrin, he’d used more oatmeal than before, which resulted in the most unsavory concoction he’d tasted in years. But he had soldiered on and eaten the entire loaf over a period of several days. He was so ashamed of it, he had hidden it at the back of the refrigerator, where he hoped Puny wouldn’t find it.

  Every light in the small house glowed warmly through the heavy mist that lay upon the village.

  “Pleasant!” he said, aloud. “A small house for a small person.” He lifted the old brass knocker and rapped three times.

  There was no answer to his knock, so he tried again.

  Nothing.

  Since callers occasionally had to go to the back door of the rectory to rouse him from his study, he thought the same might apply in this case. He stumbled around the side of the house, over broken flagstones, toward a light shining above the back door.

  He knocked and waited. Not a sound.

  He cautiously opened the door and peered into a minuscule but inviting kitchen.

  A broiling pan sat on the stove, containing a blackened roast. Next to it, a pot had boiled over, and a tray of unbaked rolls sat disconsolately on the countertop. “H
ello!” he called.

  A white cat leaped onto the breakfast table, looked at him curiously, and began cleaning her paws. “Violet, I presume?” He had never been fond of cats.

  He heard her coming down the stairs, then she appeared at the kitchen door, her eyes red from crying.

  “I’ve done it again,” she said, sniffing. “I can never get it right. I sat down at my drawing table for just one minute. One minute! An hour later, I looked up, and the rice had boiled over and the roast had burned, and well, there you have it.”

  “ ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might’!” he quoted cheerfully from Ecclesiastes. “You must have been doing something you liked.”

  She sighed. “I was drawing moles.”

  Moles again! That explains it, thought her caller. “Look here,” he said, “if you don’t mind, let me experiment with this.” He made a broad gesture toward the ruined dinner.

  “It will take a miracle,” she said, flatly.

  “I’d be very open to a good miracle. Where’s your carving knife?”

  He drew the sharp knife across the end of the roast, and a thick slice peeled away neatly. “Well, now! Just the way I like it. Overdone on the outside and rare in the middle.” He carved a sliver and handed it to his hostess on the point of the blade. “See what you think.”

  Cynthia eyed it suspiciously, then did as he suggested. “Delicious!” she declared with feeling. “It is a miracle!”

  He lifted the lid on the pot that had boiled over on the burner, and stirred the contents with a wooden spoon. “It’s stuck on the bottom, but I think it’s just right. Yes, indeed. Wild rice. A favorite!”

  “You really are infernally kind,” she said tartly.

  “Not kind. Famished. I ran today and missed lunch entirely.”

  “Well,” she said, the color coming back into her cheeks, “I did make a crabmeat casserole for the first course. That worked! And there are glazed onions with rosemary and honey that appear edible.” She took two fragrant, steaming dishes out of the oven and set them on the counter.

  “I hear you like a drop of sherry now and then,” she said, and poured from a bottle with a distinguished label. She handed him a glass and poured one for herself.

  “You’ve prepared a grand feast!” exclaimed her guest.

  “Cheers!” said his relieved hostess.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A White Thanksgiving

  Thanksgiving came to the village, along with a deep and unexpected blanket of snow.

  “A white Thanksgiving comes to Mitford,” wrote Muse editor J.C. Hogan, “and a lot of turkeys have been careening down Baxter Hill on biscuit pans.”

  Winnie Ivey, wearing last year’s Christmas muffler, walked with a heavy basket and a light heart to her brother’s rooms over the barbershop.

  Miss Rose and Uncle Billy put on their boots and went to the All-Church Feast, with Miss Rose carrying quantities of wax paper in her pockets, for wrapping takeouts.

  Miss Sadie, fearing there might be ice under the snow, chose to stay home, eat a Swanson’s chicken pie, and make a list of things to do for Louella’s arrival the week after Christmas.

  Puny Bradshaw roasted a turkey and went to visit her sisters.

  And Russell Jacks baked a hen, cooked a mess of collard greens, and made a cake of cornbread. When villagers saw smoke boiling out of the Jackses’ chimney, and his scrap-metal graveyard obscured by a mantle of fresh snow, they were fairly enchanted.

  Before attending the All-Church Feast, held this year at First Baptist, Father Tim put two pies and a pan of Puny’s sausage dressing into a basket and walked with Barnabas to Little Mitford Creek.

  When he reached Winnie Ivey’s cottage by the bridge, he turned left and headed far along the creek, into the snow-silent woods.

  Here and there, limbs fell with a soft thud onto the white crust of the forest floor, which caused Barnabas to leap with a mixture of joy and alarm at the end of his red leash.

  What, he wondered, had he ever done without Barnabas? Without the long, companionable walks, the pleasure and the aggravation of a living creature to care for, the growing empathy between them, and, yes, the delight?

  “Son of consolation” was the meaning given to the name Barnabas in the fourth chapter of Acts, and he was all that and more.

  Barnabas had even done for him what nothing else had ever done. This great, black, maverick dog had somehow made him feel twenty years younger.

  They followed fresh tracks to a low point on the creek bank and crossed the creek on a series of large boulders. On the other side, the tracks led to the door of a ramshackle house, sitting near a derelict bridge.

  The chimney sent up billows of fragrant wood smoke, and from inside the dwelling, which was scarcely bigger than a toolshed, came the sound of laughter.

  “Come in, come in!” said Samuel K. Hobbes, as he opened the door and limped aside on his crutch. “Come in and warm yourselves by th’ fire!”

  Barnabas bounded in to shake his wet fur on all assembled, then lay down by the glowing wood stove. The rector was pleased to see that every church denomination in town was represented in that small room, and each had come with a bag or basket for Homeless Hobbes.

  Homeless moved nimbly on his battered crutch, pouring coffee for every guest.

  “You could use another chair in this place,” suggested a Methodist deacon who was standing in a corner.

  “Nossir, I couldn’t,” said Homeless, setting the empty pot on a shelf. “Mr. Thoreau himself had two and often regretted it. Fact is, m’ two pairs of pants is one too many.”

  Father Tim unwound the wool muffler from around his neck. “What about these two pumpkin pies? You want me to take one back?”

  “No, my good Father, I do not. Pants and pies is two different things.”

  “You got that right!” said Rodney Underwood, who had brought a pie himself.

  Homeless hitched up his suspenders and surveyed the little table. “Lookit this bounty! Two, three, four, five . . . seven pies. Scandalous! Far too many pies for ol’ Homeless. And a big, fat hen, and a sack of ham biscuits, and a quart of collards, and a fine mess of sweet potatoes . . .”

  “Don’t forget th’ bag of grits and a ham hock for soup,” said Rodney, who was a stickler for accuracy.

  “And Puny Bradshaw’s sausage dressing,” said the rector.

  Homeless surveyed the gathering. “Well, boys, much as I ’preciate all this, I’ve got to tell you the gospel truth.”

  “What’s that?” the deacon asked, suspiciously.

  “I’m goin’ to give the best portion of these eats to folks who’re worse off than me.”

  “I didn’t know there was anybody worse off than you,” said young Jack Teague from the Presbyterians.

  “That’s what you think, son. You head up the hill from this creek, and all back in there, you’ll find ’em worse off than me. With little young ’uns, too.”

  “Do what you want to with it,” said Rodney. “It’s yours in th’ name of the Lord.”

  “And I thank you for it,” said Homeless.

  Rodney passed a basket of ham biscuits his mother had sent. “Let’s bless these ham biscuits, boys,” he said, and launched into a prayer covering world hunger, food stamps, stray animals, firewood, the Baptist conference, Little Mitford Creek, Big Mitford Creek, the sick, the unsaved, an unwelcome forecast for more snow, the town council’s decision on sidewalks for Lilac Road, the president, the Congress, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the local fire and police departments.

  “Amen!” said Homeless. “That ought t’ last me ’til this time next year.”

  “Mr. Hobbes,” said Jack Teague, “I hear tell you used to live in New York City.”

  “That’s a fact. Had a big, fancy office on Madison Avenue and an apartment right on the Hudson River.”

  “No kidding!” said Jack, shaking his head in amazement. “And how long have you been homeless . . . sir?”


  “My friend, as you can plainly see, I am not homeless in the least.” He indicated the wood stove, a rickety table covered with oilcloth, two shelves, a kerosene lamp, a chair, a cot, a sink, and a toilet that was partially hidden by a red gingham tablecloth looped over a wire.

  “The way I’m able to live today is not only one hundred percent stress-proof, it is guaranteed recession-proof. No matter which way the economy goes, it don’t affect me one way or th’ other.

  “To tell th’ plain truth, this is th’ finest home I ever had, and I’ve lived in high style from New York City to Dallas, Texas, not to mention one stint in Los Angelees, California.”

  “Wow! What business were you in?”

  “Advertisin’, my boy!” said Homeless, with a wicked grin. “Advertisin’!”

  On Saturday morning, Mitford woke to a second blanket of snow, so Father Tim canceled his trip with Dooley to Meadowgate Farm. Instead, he had lunch at the Grill and went shopping with Uncle Billy.

  “Rose needs somethin’ to wear,” said his friend, who had decided to spend some of the proceeds from his art show. “I’m not a proud man, Preacher, but that ol’ army stuff she drags out’n the closet nearly shames me t’ death.

  “Th’ dress she wore t’ the drawin’ show, she hauled that out’n th’ Dumpster on Forks Road— seen th’ tail of it hangin’ over th’ side, don’t you know, when we was th’owin’ out some dinette chairs.”

  “I don’t know how much good I can do you, Uncle Billy. I’ve never in my life shopped for women’s clothes. It’s all I can do to shop for myself.”

  “Well, but you’re a preacher, and you know what’s right for Sunday morning.” Uncle Billy flashed his gold tooth in a winning smile. “I’d be beholden to you.”

  “Done, then!” said the rector, and they set off in heavy boots and coats toward the dress shop across from the war monument.

  He was deep in thought as he walked with Barnabas on Saturday afternoon to Lord’s Chapel. His shopping trip with Uncle Billy had been a thorough success, and he could hardly wait to see Miss Rose on Sunday, decked out in the black suit that was forty percent off, and a fuchsia wool coat they landed for half price.