Out to Canaan

  “It’s old as Methuselah, but I think I can fix it.”

  “I want you t’ let me fix somethin’ f’r you, now, Rev’rend, I’m runnin’ behind on that.”

  “Can’t think of anything that needs it,” he said, taking a wrench out of his tool kit.

  “Maybe it’s somethin’ that don’t need fixin’, jis’ tendin’ to.”

  “Well, now.” Wouldn’t Dooley rather get his driving lesson from a bona fide race car mechanic than a preacher? He was sure Harley could make the lesson far more interesting, and even teach Dooley some professional safety tips from the track. Besides, even with the new torque in the Buick, Harley’s truck would be a much more compelling vehicle to a fourteen-year-old boy.

  “There is something you could do,” he said, “if you’re going to be around Saturday afternoon.”

  He could feel the bat in his hands. How many years had it been since he’d slammed a ball over the fence? Too many! He’d better get in shape, he thought, huffing up Old Church Lane in his running gear. Barnabas bounded along in front on the red leash.

  Cooler today, but humid. Overcast skies, rain predicted. And didn’t the garden need it? He’d worn a hood, just in case.

  He wished he could get his wife to run with him, but no way. She was a slave to her drawing board, and lately looking the worse for it. The unofficial job of deacon, the job of organizing their jam-packed household, and the job of children’s author/illustrator were wearing on her. And hadn’t he helped put another portion on her already full plate by stowing Buck in the guest room?

  He was frankly stumped about how to find housing for the superintendent, and with the attic job gearing up, Buck hardly had time to look around for himself. Maybe Scott Murphy would take in a boarder . . . .

  He ran up to the low stone wall overlooking what he called the Land of Counterpane, and thumped down with Barnabas, panting.

  There was the view that Louella and all the other residents farther along the hill could wake up and see every day of their lives. A feast for the eyes! He didn’t get up here much, but when he did . . .

  It was here, sitting on this wall, that he had known, at last, he could marry her, must marry her, and experienced the terrible anxiety of what it could mean to lose her. And it was here that he and Cynthia decided they both wanted to stay in Mitford when he retired.

  Was he on time for the train? He looked at his watch. Another few minutes. Perhaps he would wait. Was life so all-fired urgent that he couldn’t find five minutes to see a sight that always blessed and delighted him?

  He was utterly alone in this place where, for all its singular beauty, few people ever came. It was set steeply above the village, it was off the beaten path, it was . . .

  He heard the car below him, on the gravel road that ran along the side of the gorge and was seldom used except by a few local families.

  He peered down and saw the black car pull to the shoulder of the road and stop. A man opened the driver’s door and leaned out, looking around, then closed the door again. He was wearing a hat, a cap of some kind.

  Mighty fine car to be out on Tucker’s Mill Road, he thought, glancing again at his watch. Maybe the train would be early.

  The pickup truck didn’t move so slowly. He saw the plume of dust through the trees, then saw the blue truck screech to a stop beside the black car. A man jumped out, walked around the front of the truck, and stood for a moment by the car. It appeared that he was handed something through the car window.

  The driver quickly got back in the truck, gunned the motor, and drove away, leaving a cloud of dust to settle over everything in its wake.

  He watched as the car backed onto a narrow turnout, reversed direction, and rolled almost silently along Tucker’s Mill.

  By George, there was the train; he heard its horn faintly in the distance. Around the track it came, breaking through the trees by the red barn . . .

  That scene he had just witnessed—had there been something strangely unsettling about it?

  . . . then it huffed along the side of the open fields by the row of tiny houses and disappeared behind the trees.

  He hadn’t been able to tell from this vantage point what kind of car it was, but then, what difference did it make, anyway?

  “Enough!” he said to his dog, and they bounded down the slope toward Baxter Park in the first drops of a misting rain.

  Instead of turning into the park, he decided to run to the bottom of the hill and pop into Oxford Antiques. He’d inquire about Andrew and look for a present for Cynthia’s birthday. He was barely getting in under the wire, considering that July 20 was two days hence.

  Marcie Guthrie, Puny’s mother-in-law and one of the mayor’s five good-looking deluxe-size daughters, was reading a romance novel behind the cash register. “Father! Bring your dog in, but tell him to watch his tail!”

  He tethered Barnabas to the leg of a heavy table. “Marcie, give me a few ideas for my wife’s birthday, and I’ll give you my eternal thanks.”

  “Well! Goodness! Let’s see.”

  Cynthia was nearly as simple in her wants as he, thanks be to God. And she always seemed touchingly grateful when he gave her a gift.

  “It must be something . . . wonderful,” he said.

  “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed. “The very thing! Come over here.”

  He trotted behind her to a gigantic walnut secretary with beveled glass doors. “There!” she said.

  “Oh, no. That’s far too large!”

  “Not the secretary. The lap desk!”

  Aha! Sitting next to the secretary on a Georgian buffet was a lap desk of exquisite proportions. That was it, all right, he knew it at once. A small lap desk with a pen drawer, a built-in inkstand, and a leather writing surface. Perfect!

  He was afraid to ask.

  “Four hundred and seventy-nine dollars!” she informed him. “It’s not that old, just turn-of-the-century.”

  “Ummm.”

  “But for you, only four hundred. Andrew said whenever you come in to buy, to give you a special discount.”

  “Done!” he said, feeling a combination of vast relief, excitement over such a find, and momentary guilt for shelling out four hundred bucks. “I’ll bring you a check in the morning. Will you wrap it?”

  “Of course, and look at this little drawer. Lined with old Chinese tea paper, and here’s one of the original pen nibs.”

  His guilt vanished at once.

  “Have you heard about Andrew?” she asked.

  “How is he, when is he coming home?”

  “He doesn’t know. It all sounds mysterious to me. He usually never stays away so long. But of course, it is his mama’s hometown and he’s probably visitin’ cousins an’ all . . . .”

  “Probably. I seldom see him, but when he’s not here, I miss him.”

  “He’s called twice to see how business is. He sounds . . . different.”

  “Oh? How do you mean, different?”

  “I mean, well, really happy or somethin’.”

  “Cousins can do that for you,” he said, grinning. He suddenly realized he missed his own cousin, the only blood kin he had on the face of the earth. He’d call Walter tonight.

  He put his hood up and sprinted along Main Street with his dog. May as well make one more stop, then head for home.

  “Winnie?”

  He parked Barnabas by the door and peered over the bakery counter.

  “I’m comin’!” she said, breezing through the curtains that hid the bakery kitchen. “Father, I’m glad it’s you!”

  “I hear you got a bite!”

  “Maybe a nibble, I don’t know.”

  “What’s the scoop?”

  “Well, this real estate agency wants to know everything, so I sent ’em all the information, but nobody’s turned up to see it yet.”

  “Terrific!” He didn’t really think it was terrific, but what else could he say? “Who’s the realtor?”

  “Somebody named H. Tide Realty from??
?I forget, maybe Florida.”

  Florida again. “How do you feel about it?”

  “After waitin’ for somebody to be interested, when this finally happened, it kind of . . .”

  “Kind of what?”

  “Made me sick.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Definitely.”

  She looked uncertain.

  “You know we want you to stay. But if you decide to go, remember we’ll stand behind that, too.”

  Winnie looked relieved. “Good! I don’t know why, but I always feel better when I talk to you.”

  “Maybe it’s the collar.”

  “Have a napoleon!” she urged, in her usual burst of generosity.

  “Get thee behind me, absolutely not. But tell you what—I’ve got a houseful, so bag me a dozen donuts, Dooley will love that, and Harley, too, and let’s see, a dozen oatmeal cookies . . .”

  “Low-fat!” she said.

  “Great. Now, what about that pie on the right? The one with the lattice top?”

  “Cherry!”

  “My favorite. Box it up!” Spending four hundred dollars had made him feel so good, he was trying to do it all over again.

  Rhody Davis’s leg was being amputated today.

  He was praying for her this morning at first light, soon after reading Blaise Pascal. A young man who lived in the seventeenth century knew what Rhody Davis and several others on his current prayer list needed more than anything else.

  “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person,” Pascal wrote. “And it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”

  Pascal had dazzled Europe with his sophisticated mathematical equations when he was only sixteen, and written about the God-shaped vacuum when he wasn’t much older.

  Nearly every day of his priesthood, Father Tim had seen what happened when people tried filling that vacuum with any created thing. Pauline had tried to fill it with alcohol. Rhody Davis had tried to fill it with someone else’s child . . . .

  He closed his eyes and prayed for all those who turn to the created thing, expecting much and receiving nothing.

  The talk on the street was that Mack Stroupe was responsible for hooking the Fernbank sale, which would do wonders for Mitford’s economy. Not only would such an enterprise draw people from other parts of the country, maybe even the world, but a major part of the staff would be locals. All that landscaping, all that maintenance, all that ocean of roofing and plumbing—and all that money flowing into Mitford pockets.

  According to several reports, Fernbank was already sold, it was a done deal.

  Mack Stroupe was looking good.

  He called the mayor’s office.

  “She’s not in,” said the painfully shy Ernestine Ivory, who gave the mayor a hand two days a week.

  “May I ask where she is?”

  “Down at the school. She’s doing a special program for the children.”

  “Children can’t vote,” he said.

  “Yes, Father, that’s true. But their parents can.”

  Bingo. “Tell her I called.”

  Harley nodded, looking sober.

  “Don’t let him talk you into anything you don’t think is right . . .”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “ . . . or safe. Especially safe!”

  “No, sir, I wouldn’t.”

  The rector sighed and moved closer to Harley’s oscillating fan.

  “Now, don’t you worry, Rev’rend. I’ll watch after ’im like m’ own young ’un.”

  “I know you will.”

  “Hit’ll work some of th’ juice out of ’im.”

  “Right.”

  “While I’ve got a educated man settin’ here, I’d be beholden if you’d give me a little help with m’ homework an’ all.”

  “Your homework?”

  “Lace has it in ’er head t’ educate me, she’s givin’ me a test in a day or two.”

  “How do you feel about getting educated?”

  “I’ve a good mind t’ quit, but she’s got ’er heart set on learnin’ me somethin’. Lace has had a good bit of hard knocks, I don’t want t’ let ’er down.”

  “That’s right. How can I help you?”

  “Well, looky here. Sixty seventh-grade students toured th’ Statue of Liberty in New York City. Two-thirds of ’em climbed to th’ halfway point, and one-fourth of ’em was able t’ climb all th’ way to th’ top. Now, th’ remainin’ group, they stayed down on th’ base of th’ pedestal, it says here. How many students didn’t climb th’ steps? I can’t figger it t’ save m’ neck.”

  The rector mopped his brow. “Oh, boy.”

  “Here’s another’n, this ’uns easier. The torch of th’ Statue of Liberty is three hundred an’ five foot from th’ bottom of th’ base. If th’ pedestal on which th’ statue rests is eighty-nine foot high, how high is th’ base?”

  “Let me go get a drink of water and I’ll come back and see what I can do.”

  As he drank a glass of water at Harley’s kitchen sink, he heard him muttering in the next room, “Elton washes winders at a office buildin’. Some offices has four winders and some has six . . .”

  How did he get himself into these scrapes, anyway?

  He kissed the nape of her neck, just under the ponytail she’d lately taken to sporting.

  “Is there anything special you’d like to do for your birthday?” Please, Lord, don’t let her say a domestic retreat. I don’t have time, she doesn’t have time, it can’t happen.

  She sighed. “We’re both exhausted, dearest. Let’s don’t do any fancy dinners or tangos, let’s get Chinese take-out from Wesley, lock our bedroom door, and just be.”

  And what would their teeming household think about such a thing? Oh, well.

  “I can handle that,” he said, drawing her close.

  “Ron, was there ever any discussion with Miami Development about Fernbank’s apple orchard? There are a hundred and sixty-two trees up there, and all are still bearing.”

  “She mentioned the orchard the first time she was here. They’d tear it out. That’s where most of the cottages will be built.”

  A small point, but it stung him. Those trees had dropped their fruit into any hand that passed, for years. They had filled Mitford’s freezers with pies and cobblers, and crowded endless pantry shelves with sauce and jelly.

  An even smaller point, perhaps, but he noticed that Ron had said “will be built.”

  A new day-care program was getting under way at Lord’s Chapel as Buck Leeper’s crew began their invasion of the attic.

  Given that the only access to the attic was through the trapdoor over the pulpit, merely getting into the attic was a project.

  Under Buck’s supervision, the crew removed stones from the east wall, cut through studs, sheeting, and insulation, installed a new header and a sill, and created a double-door entrance. Until the outside steps could be built, ladders and scaffolding permitted the crew to haul up endless feet of lumber for classroom partitions and a restroom.

  It was all going forward exactly as he expected: his very hair, what was left of it, was filled with a fine dust, as were the pews and all that lay below. Kneelers got their share, so that when parishioners wearing black arose from prayer, the fronts of skirts and trousers displayed a clear mark of piety.

  Anybody else, he thought, would have retired and left the attic project to the next poor fellow, but he had celebrated and preached beneath the vast, empty loft for sixteen years, dreaming of the day they could fill it with children.

  Yes, there’d be the patter of little feet above the heads of the congregation, though measures would be taken to muffle the sound considerably. In any case, it was a sound he’d be glad to hear.

  Puny met him at the front door with Sissy on one hip and Sassy on the other.

  “Father, I jis’ don’t think I can keep bringin’ th’ girls to work with me, even thou
gh I know how much it means to you to have ’em here.” She looked unusually distressed.

  He took Sissy and walked down the hall behind his house help.

  “Ba!” said the happy twin, bashing him on the head with a plastic frying pan. “Ba!”

  “That’s what she calls you, did you know that?”

  “Really?”

  “That’s your name. When I show her your wedding picture at home, she always says Ba!”

  He felt honored. Ba! He’d never had another name before, except Father.

  He sat down at the kitchen table and took a twin on either knee, which he immediately geared to the jiggling mode. “I know it’s hard for you trying to work with two little ones . . . .”

  “I cain’t hardly get my work done anymore, but I hated to put ’em out to day care, they’ll only be babies once, and I didn’t want . . .” Puny looked close to tears. “I didn’t want to miss that!”

  “Of course not! I know it’s a strain for you, but we’ll work with you on it. We’re pleased with all you do, Puny. You’re the best, and always have been.”

  Her face brightened. He loved the look of the red-haired, freckle-faced Puny Guthrie, who was like blood kin, the closest thing to a daughter he’d ever have. Besides, who else would clean the mildew off his shoes, wipe behind the picture frames, mend his shirts, bake cornbread deserving of a blue ribbon, and keep the clothes closets looking like racks at a department store? What she was able to do, even with two toddlers in tow, was more than anyone else would do, he was sure of it.

  “The church day care will be open next week. Hang on, and if you’d like to put them in for a day or two to see how it goes, well . . .”

  “Thank you, Father! You’re a wonderful granpaw. Would you mind holdin’ ’em a minute while I run up and bring th’ laundry down?”

  “Mama, Mama!” yelled Sassy.

  “Ba!” sighed Sissy, snuggling against him.