At Home in Mitford (14 page)

It had been a week since Puny Bradshaw had rung his doorbell at precisely eight o’clock in the morning and started taking over his house.

Fortunately, he was just going out the door as she came in, thereby sparing himself the awful trial of having to tell her what to do.

He was humiliated to think that, the night before, he had hidden his laundry in a pillowcase and stuffed it into the back of his closet, like some sneak thief or chicken poacher. What was considerably worse is that she had found it. When he came home around noon to pick up his sermon notebook, she met him in the hall.

“Father,” she said, shamelessly holding up the most ragged pair of shorts he owned, “your underwear looks like it’s been in a catfight. How in the world do you preach a sermon in these things?”

He was so stunned by this display that he hadn’t been able to reply.

“Don’t mind me,” she said, seeing that he minded very much. “My granpaw was a preacher, and I waited on ’im hand and foot for years, so you might say I’m cut out for this job. Tell you what, next time I’m at Wal-Mart over in Wesley, I’ll get you a dozen pairs, ’cause I’m goin’ to use these for cleanin’ rags!”

When he arrived home that afternoon at five-thirty, he found a steaming, but spotless, kitchen and a red-cheeked Puny.

“That bushel of tomatoes like to killed me!” she declared. “After I froze that big load of squash, I found some jars in your garage, sterilized ’em in your soup pot, and canned ever’ one in th’ bushel. Looky here,” she said, proudly, pointing to fourteen Mason jars containing vermillion tomatoes.

“Puny,” he exclaimed with joyful amazement, “this is a sight for sore eyes.”

“Not only that, but I scrubbed your bathroom ’til it shines, and I want to tell you right now, Father, if I’m goin’ to stay here—and I dearly need th’ work—you’re goin’ to have to put your toilet seat up when you relieve yourself.”

He felt his face burn. A little Emma, her employer thought, darkly. Now I’ve got one at the office and one at home, a matched set.

He could not, however, dismiss the joy of seeing fourteen jars of tomatoes lined up on his kitchen counter.

On Friday afternoon, he arrived at the rectory to find the house filled with ravishing aromas.

Baked chicken. Squash casserole. Steamed broccoli. Corn on the cob. And frozen yogurt topped with cooked Baxter apples. Oh, ye of little faith, why didst thou doubt? he quoted to himself.

“I know about that old diabetes stuff, my granpaw had it worse’n you,” Puny told him with satisfaction. “An’ not only can I cook for diabetes, I can cook for high blood pressure, heart trouble, nervous stomach, and constipation.”

During the past twelve years, he had sometimes asked in a fit of frustration, “Lord, what have I done to deserve Emma Garrett?” Now, he found himself asking with a full heart, “Lord, what have I done to deserve Puny Bradshaw?”

He chose his best suit, just back from the cleaners in Wesley, and hung it on the hook behind his bedroom door. He laid out a pair of brand-new boxer shorts, which Puny Bradshaw had kindly fetched from Wal-Mart, and a shirt she had ironed to perfection. Then he shined his black loafers, put away the kit, and remembered to get a clean handkerchief from his top drawer.

He had already had morning prayer and studied the challenging message of Luke 12: “Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, nor about your body, what you shall put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?”

There was not one man in a thousand who considered these words more than poetical vapor, he thought as he dressed. Don’t be anxious? Most mortals considered anxiety, and plenty of it, an absolute requirement for getting the job done. Yet, over and over again, the believer was cautioned to abandon anxiety, and look only to God.

Whatever else that might be, it certainly wasn’t common sense.

But “common sense is not faith,” Oswald Chambers had written, “and faith is not common sense.”

He was entering that part of the week in which his sermon was continually on his mind. “Let me say I believe God will supply all my need,” Chambers had written, “and then let me run dry, with no outlook, and see whether I will go through the trial of faith, or . . . sink back to something lower.”

He put his handkerchief in his pocket, and looked into the full-length mirror on the back of the guest room door.

There. That would do.

He picked up his sermon notebook, went to the garage to say good-bye to Barnabas, and set out walking to his early meeting with Mayor Cunningham.

In her office at the town hall, Esther Cunningham was eating a sausage biscuit with an order of fries and drinking a Diet Coke, which Father Tim found remarkable, considering that it was only 7:00 a.m.

“Top of the morning!” she said, lifting her cup in a grand salute. “Come in, sit down, take a number!”

There were, indeed, a few places to sit in the mayor’s office. When she was first elected fourteen years ago, she had rented a U-Haul truck and brought all her den furniture from home, much to the astonishment of her husband. There was a powder blue sofa, a leather love seat, two club chairs, an ottoman, and a Danish Modern cocktail table. None of which did much to conceal the fact that the walls were slowly mildewing from the effect of a roof leak that no one, in as many years, had been able to locate.

“How do you like that fine snap in the air this morning?” he asked, sitting in a club chair across from Esther.

“There’s nothin’ I like better! Ray and me are takin’ the RV and headin’ for the first trout stream we can find. Right after the next granbaby, of course.”

The mayor was known for her several beautiful daughters and astonishing number of grandchildren, but he could not recall the latest head count.

“And what number will this be?”

“Twenty-three!” she said. A brass band might have struck up behind her.

“Aha!” he said, looking around for a coffeepot. As far as he could tell, there was not a drop in the place. “Esther, your girls are doing all in their power to raise our taxes.”

“Don’t complain. So far, you’ve got two garbage collectors, a postman, a bank teller, a policeman, and a park ranger out of th’ deal. Not to mention a fireman and a drove of Sunday school teachers.”

“How quickly I forget. Well, shall we get right to business?”

“We’d better. I’ve got a council meeting at eight o’clock about namin’ the town flower. They’ve chewed on this thing ’til I’m about half sick of it, and now the Wesley paper wants a story, and they won’t let us alone ’til we announce it.

“Whichever flower it falls out to be, we’re goin’ to paint it on signs comin’ into town, put a plaque at the monument, set aside a special day with a parade, get the governor to come for the ceremony . . . I never saw such a to-do since the Baxter Apple Bake-Off.”

“Don’t remind me,” said the rector, who had personally baked sixteen deep-dish pies last year to raise money for the library.

“What do you think the town flower should be? You’re a gardener.” She wadded up her biscuit wrapper and lobbed a fine pass into the wastebasket.

“The pansy vote is mighty strong, of course.”

“Well, but look at all the rose arbors up Old Church Lane.”

“That’s right, but they’re out of general view. What do tourists see in the window boxes along Main Street? Pansies! Around the town monument? Pansies every year! And the shop gardens? Full of pansies!”

“Would you want to invite somebody to Pansy Day? I mean, think about it, would you call somebody in Raleigh or Salisbury and say come on up for Pansy Day?”

“Ah, Mayor, you’ve got a point there. I wouldn’t have your job for the world.”

“I’ve had it too long, to tell the truth. I wouldn’t want you to spread this, but I’m groomin’ one of my grans for the next election.”

“Imagine that!”

“Now, while I finish my cholesterol fix, why don’t you tell me what’s up?”

“What if, upon the event of a death, the town were to be given a large home for civic use, and in that home was left a family member with no place to go? The surviving family member is a good sort, presently of sound mind and body, and no trouble to anyone. Do you think the tone of the council would be agreeable, if this came to pass today, to letting the surviving member stay on? It would be legally sound.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willin’ to mention any names in this scenario.”

“ ‘Drawing on my fine command of the English language,’ ” he said, quoting Benchley, " ’I’ll say nothing.’ ”

“So, since none of this has actually happened and I don’t know doodley-squat about who you’re talkin’ about—I guess you’re lookin’ for a gut reaction?”

“That’s right.”

“I’d say if what you tell me is right, and it always has been, we could work it out. We look after our own here in Mitford, that’s been one of my big things all along. You know, for example, that we always make sure Miss Rose and Uncle Billy have oil in their tank.”

“Good example.”

“So,” said the mayor, giving him a broad wink.

“So, what’s your vote for the town flower?”

“Johnny Jump-Up!” she said, laughing.

“Tell you what. If you can get anybody to drive all the way from Charlotte or Raleigh for Johnny Jump-Up Day, I’ll take you out for a big steak dinner in Wesley.”

“I’ll hold you to it!” said the mayor, vigorously shaking his hand.

When he got to the office after a visit with the seriously ill Pearly McGee, he found Uncle Billy waiting on the step, holding a package wrapped loosely in yellowed copies of the
Mitford Muse.

“Mornin’, Preacher.”

“Good morning, Uncle Billy,” he said, helping the old man to his feet.

“That ol’ arth’r’ is gittin’ s’ bad, I cain’t hardly git down, much less up. Pretty soon, you’uns ’ll jis’ have to stand me aginst th’ wall.”

“Maybe use you for a hat rack.”

“Maybe put a little birdhouse on top and set me in th’ yard.” Uncle Billy laughed, showing all three of his teeth. Inside, he eased himself onto the visitor’s bench, and carefully laid the package across his knees.

Father Tim plugged in the coffeepot and opened the windows. “To get right to it, Uncle Billy, I’ve done some checking. My attorney is familiar with cases like yours. Legally, a dispensation could be made that would enable you to live on in the Porter house. And while I never mentioned a name, the mayor thinks the council would cooperate wholeheartedly.

“We both know we can’t second-guess what tomorrow will bring, or how the town leadership will change, but it seems to me that you have nothing to worry about.”

Uncle Billy lowered his head for a moment. When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes. “Thank you, Preacher.”

“No, Uncle Billy, thank you. I believe the Holy Spirit has shown me a sermon in your predicament.” The disciples had been repeatedly instructed with one simple word:
Ask.
Uncle Billy, like much of the rest of humanity, had spent precious years worrying instead of asking.

“I hope that’s your drawings you’ve got there.”

“I was about not to bring ’em, don’t you know. I got to lookin’ at ’em an’ sa’id, ‘Rose, I cain’t drag this ol’ stuff over to th’ preacher.’ Well, she got to fussin’ an’ sayin’ how I never did have much belief in m’self. But that ain’t right. I know I can cane chairs and make signs as good as th’ next feller, and I ain’t too bad with a birdhouse, don’t you know. But this here is flat stuff.”

“And I’ve been looking forward to seeing it ever since you mentioned it last week.”

The old man stood up slowly and put his package down on the desk. Then he began to peel back the brittle newspapers.

Father Tim saw that the date on the
Mitford Muse
was 1952. And then he saw the first drawing.

In stunned silence, he looked at the finely detailed pencil rendering of a bird dog in a cornfield, a sky alive with quail, and, in the distance, a hunter with upraised shotgun against a background of late autumn trees.

“Good heavens,” he said quietly.

On Friday, he did something he’d seldom ever done. He took the day off.

After all, the cleaning truck was coming from Wesley, and he needed to go through the pockets of all his suits, and attach notes about simple alterations. He had to go to the barbershop and get his neck “cleaned up” as Joe Ivey always said, take his shoes to be resoled, and buy something to remove the beer label from his motor scooter helmet.

Because he made his usual trip to the hospital and the Grill before launching these chores, he wasn’t at home when Puny arrived at eight o’clock.

She hoped he would have done something with the bushel of Baxter apples still sitting in the garage, and save her the trouble. But there they sat, drawing flies, as she discovered when she opened the door.