Mercy Me (4 page)

“As sure as rain,” I lied. Well, maybe it wasn't a lie; it hadn't rained in a month of Sundays.

“Beatrice,” I said, “I don't want to run up a big bill here, so let me say what I have to say real quick and get off the line. Don't you dare give up praying for that cure.”

(Anybody use the word
cancer
with Beatrice, she would panic and get historical.)

“It's a big thing you're asking for and it takes a whole lot of trust. And a lot of patience, I might add. In his own time and in his own way, the Lord will give a cure if it's his will. As Splurgeon says, ‘He pleases God best who trusts him most.'”

“I know you're right, Esmeralda, but it's so hard to wait. You don't hear people praying much these days, do you?”

“No, you don't,” I said as I was trying to straighten out the twisted phone cord. “Remember when the Willing Workers were gung ho about writing letters to the president to get him to put prayer back in the schools? My question was then and it is now: When are they going to put prayer back in the church? You remember how Wednesday nights used to be at Apostolic—young and old alike flocking to prayer meeting. There was such good singing and testimonies and prayer requests. Remember how John Williams always took up more time than all the rest of us put together testifying and wanting us to pray for all the souls he was trying to win?”

“I remember. Before he'd get started, Pastor McBrayer would always tell him to make it short.”

“Little good it did, but I tell you, we all loved to hear John Williams pray! We'd all get down on our knees, remember? First one, then another would pray, but sometimes John would pray twice. Nowadays nobody gets down on their knees. Wonder how they'll do on that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess? Ha! Ha!”

“Don't the Catholics and Episcopalians kneel?”

“Well, you got me there.” I got the cord untangled, but it didn't stay that way long. “Now, Beatrice, you know I have got to cut this short, but do you remember that little motto tacked up on the wall: M
UCH
P
RAYER
, M
UCH
P
OWER
; L
ITTLE
P
RAYER
, L
ITTLE
P
OWER
; N
O
P
RAYER
, N
O
P
OWER
? Well, it has come to that. No prayer to speak of and no power, just Wednesday night suppers and activities.”

“It's a sin and a shame, ain't it?”

“Yes, it is, but we mustn't give up. Oh, by the way, I got most of the garden planted, and to tell the truth, at day's end all I want to do is sit on the porch and rest. I used my savings to buy me a nice glider at a yard sale, and Elmer brought it up to the house. He didn't want to take pay, so I told him to go down in the basement and take whatever jars of the canned stuff he wanted. I got jars dating back three or four years. He was tickled to death.”

Throughout this conversation, I was debating back and forth whether or not to tell Beatrice what I had learned about Percy. Finally I figured I had put it off as long as I could. It wouldn't be right not to tell her, but breaking the news wouldn't be easy. I hoped the Lord would help me say it.

I tried to sound sympathetic. “Beatrice, your letter made me think about you and Percy. I guess I didn't really know how you felt about him.” I paused, wondering if I should apologize in case I had hurt her feelings. I didn't know what to do, seeing as I was about to drop a bombshell on her and all. So I just took a deep
breath and dived in. “Beatrice,” I said, “I hope you won't mind that I took it upon myself to find out what's happened to Percy . . .”

I figured the poor girl might just climb through the telephone when she heard that! I continued all in a rush. “Elmer said he heard Percy first married a Veetnamese and after that a Yankee and after that another woman.”

I thought I heard her suck in her breath. But I didn't hear nothing else. She was so quiet, I went on talking about other things for a while so as not to leave her so upset.

“Now that the weather's nice, the homeless are camping in the grove again. Of course, most of them have got homes, they just don't want to live by the rules in that home. Well, I'll tell you, I think they hide out in the grove because they're afraid they might see a sign that says ‘Now Hiring.' Boris takes food down there every Saturday morning—whatever's left over from the men's fellowship breakfast at church.”

When I paused, I thought I heard her murmur, “That's nice,” probably hoping I wouldn't detect she was crying.

I kept on talking. “By the way, Boris has won over Clara. He asked her granddaughter to play the violin in morning service, and that was all it took. Clara has dropped her Cold Water Baptist investigation. . . . Did I tell you Boris started a bell choir? Them bells play the mischief with hearing aids.”

Well, finally, I just had to hang up. “I got to go, Beatrice. Let me know if your tongue don't get better.”

I sat in my chair a long time, wondering if I had done the right thing. I hated hurting her, but if the hurt would
put an end to her pining over Percy, then maybe she could get on with her life. That poor girl never had much love of any kind. Her daddy run off when she was a baby, and her mama died young. As a child she never even had a pet dog or cat. That's probably why she loved that old tomcat the way she did. That was the most spoiled animal in the U.S. of A.

As I sat there thinking about Beatrice, a lump got stuck in my throat. I had to fight back the tears. “Lord,” I said, “can't you bring somebody into Beatrice's life besides me who will love her?”

I knew that was a big order and not likely to happen, but it seemed like the only decent thing I could do, now that I had done in Percy.

5

I didn't hear from Beatrice for a long time. Several times I thought about calling her. I had a good excuse—I could just say I was calling to see if her tongue was still black. Of course, I knew she was well or I would've heard different.

So I went about my business, even though I still worried about her. I did kind of get her off my mind when I went to church one Wednesday night, because the trouble with that music man made me put Beatrice on the back burner.

The latest with Boris Krantz was that he weren't satisfied with the piano and organ we worked so hard to pay for. He had to have that backup music on tape. We would sit there on pins and needles while he fiddled with the machine, and the youth choir would stand waiting for him to get the tape started at the right place. It
would get going, and they would start singing all this music that comes straight out of Nashville. And if that weren't bad enough, one Sunday he had a young boy, who was not a member of our church, play the guitar. Only he couldn't half play.

As I saw it, the Willing Workers wouldn't stand for much of that nonsense once they caught on to what Boris was up to. Little by little, he was sneaking in a full-fledged band like they got down at Bethel Church. First a guitar, next thing there'd be a drummer banging away and all kinds of brass horns blasting eardrums and personally driving me up the wall.

I tell you, it seemed to me the world was coming into the church, and it was coming in fast! I was sure it was all this good economy we were having. Hard times is better for keeping folks close to the Lord. Like Splurgeon says, “If we have nothing but prosperity, we will be burned up with worldliness.” I tell you, Apostolic Bible Church was beginning to smell of the smoke of worldliness!

Enough of that. Much to my relief, I finally did get a three-page letter from Beatrice, but there was not a word in it about Percy. I was shocked. What did that mean? Was she mad at me? Was she over him? Had she cooked up some other crazy explanation, like the reason he had got married three times was because he really loved her and didn't know it? I tell you, Beatrice did not live in the real world!

Well, what she did write was that her tongue was better and she was sticking to fresh vegetables and buttermilk.
“To tell the truth,” she wrote, “I was getting sick of that mayo.”

Well, who wouldn't!

“I am not sleeping good at all,” she continued.

That's the way it always was with Beatrice; if it wasn't one thing, it was another.

I was busy as all get out, but seeing as how she was overrun with stuff she couldn't handle, I took the time to write right back to her.

When I got up the hill, I found poor old Mrs. Purdy just sitting in her chair, grieving her heart out. As I went about washing her dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, she kept calling me.

“Esmeralda, never mind the housework, just find my precious Flossie Ann.”

“I'm looking,” I'd say, and I was. But I had serious doubts that I'd ever find her, especially alive. As I scrubbed the floors, vacuumed, and dusted—all the while I was doing them things—I was looking in cabinets and closets and so forth, hoping I wouldn't find a stiff corpse but that Flossie Ann would pop out at me,
alive and well. I went down in the basement, then up in the attic, but there was no sign of that cat.

I was about to give up, thinking my worst fears had come true—that Flossie Ann was pasted on the road someplace. I started asking the Lord that since it was not his will to let me find her, would he please give me the words to ease Mrs. Purdy's broke heart.

But then I went back in the spare bedroom to straighten out the dresser drawers and pulled out the bottom one. Lo and behold, there was Flossie Ann! She looked up at me, her eyes pitiful enough to make a grown man cry.

“I found her!” I hollered, and as I gently gathered her up in my arms, I could hear Mrs. Purdy shouting, “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!”

That cat was so bony that I wrapped a towel around her so as not to hurt her. Then I carried the little thing to the living room, where Mrs. Purdy was reaching out with both arms. The minute she touched Flossie Ann, she grabbed her out of my hands and hugged her so close I was afraid she'd kill the poor creature.

I wish you could have seen them two—Mrs. Purdy just a-bawling and a-laughing at the same time, and Flossie Ann looking up at her kind of cross-eyed, too weak to meow.