“I’m goin’ to tell her anyhow.”
Sunday was cold and bright, etched with the fresh hard energy of autumn. Ma was pleased to be going to church. Looking strange and fragile in her navy blue gabardine suit, she sat between Hildie and John on the hard seat of the pickup truck. After Pa died, John had taken her to church until she gave it up of her own accord. “It ain’t the same,” she said, “with you a twistin’ and turnin’ in the pew like a cat in a trap.”
John and Mim said nothing as they drove slowly past the church with its half-finished steeple. John passed the four shiny new Crew Cab trucks in front, then pulled to a stop by the post office.
“Don’t stop,” Mim said. “No point to goin’ now. We seen enough already.”
“Not go!” Ma said. “Just on account of them trucks? They got as much right to the church as you. More. It would a been fittin’ when you took a Harlowe man if you’d a took his church as well. But you was always strong in your ways when it was any but Johnny doin’ the pushin’.”
“Get out, get out,” sang Hildie, absorbed in the delight of wearing her party dress. “I want to twirl my twirly skirt.”
And the child’s as wild as a Chinese, added Ma. “You send her to Sunday School once. Then she says no and you let her be.”
“Look who’s teachin’ it, Ma,” Mim said.
“Well Sunday School’s Sunday School. And anyway, I say it’s Mudgett’s behind all this.”
John let the truck idle, staring out at the church. Ma reached over and patted Mim’s knee. “Not that I blame you,” she said. “It’s just you mustn’t let them stop you when you got a plan.”
In the foyer of the church, the greeters lined up—first Sonny and Theresa Pike, then Mickey Cogswell looking overstuffed and florid in a suitcoat and tie. The Moores shook hands unsmiling with the Pikes and passed on to Cogswell.
“Where’s Agnes?” Mim asked.
“Not up to comin’,” he said. He looked down at Hildie and had no greeting for her. “You heard the preacher’s gone?” he said.
“Gone!” Mim said.
But Cogswell motioned to the Moores to move on. “You’ll see,” he muttered.
Mim caught the child up and carried her down the aisle, while John supported Ma on his arm and followed Ezra Stone as he ushered them to a pew in the middle of the church.
In the sanctuary, Fanny Linden was playing the organ the way she always had, and sunshine poured past yellow maples through the high clear windows. The church was never more than a quarter full even on Christmas, yet as soon as the Moores sat down, they felt another couple move in directly behind them. Glancing back, John saw the Jameses. Ian James was a deputy, one of the first. John pulled Hildie close to him.
Ma picked out her friends among the old people, and noted with pleasure that there were more of what she called “young folk” than usual. But then, there always were on the first Sunday of the preacher’s quarter. It was like a special town holy day. John looked around marking which men were there, wondering whether they were all deputies, or whether some were there for the same reasons he was. Mim listened to the solemn music and longed for the rough boards of her own kitchen beneath her feet.
With a decisive series of chords, Fanny moved into the Processional. The choir—six people in maroon surplices—shuffled into the back of the church. Mim turned to look, just in time to see Perly crowding Dixie into a back pew. He caught her eye and nodded at her as if, in all that congregation, she were his special friend. Then he sat and bowed his head.
Everyone stood up and the singing began, discordant and somewhat unsure—“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” Mim followed the words in the hymnal with her finger, too shy to sing.
Suddenly, Ma clutched at her arm. “Good God in heaven,” she said.
From a side door, a figure was approaching the pulpit wearing Janet Solossen’s black robe with the red hood. He climbed slowly up into the high central pulpit and stood silent during the singing, looking out over the congregation with blank black eyes. It was Mudgett.
After the singing was over and the organ fell silent, Mudgett read the Psalm: “My heart was hot within me; while I was musing the fire burned...” His voice was high and tense and slow. He seemed more a preacher than the preacher herself. When he lifted his head and prayed, Mim raised her eyes from her bowed head and watched, struck cold by her feeling, despite all she knew, that Mudgett had received a call and turned himself into a spokesman for God.
After the prayer, he looked out over the congregation until everyone began to squirm. It seemed a practiced gesture, one that brought the pressure of conscience to bear on them.
“I have a letter here from the Reverend Solossen,” he said at last. It’s dated yesterday.
My dear friends:
As you all know so well, I have for years taken as my special missionary concern the plight of the orphans of Vietnam. Now a wonderful opportunity to serve God has come to me, and indirectly to you. Three days ago I received an invitation to serve on a delegation of clergy to the government of Vietnam to discuss facilitating the care of these needy children. Then, today, even as I was considering whether I was meant to leave my own parishioners, and whether I could afford the plane fare, a ticket was slipped under my door for the midnight flight to Hong Kong, where I can connect with a flight to Saigon. This anonymous donation from one or more of you came to me like the answer to my prayers and like an assurance that my participation in this delegation is meant to be.
Although I know that this probably means that Harlowe will not have a preacher at all this year, 1 hope that you will feel that through me you are all helping to save the lives of these poor children—the victims, in part, of America’s tragic involvement in Southeast Asia. May your prayers go with me, as mine are with you.
Janet Solossen
The service went on—the Lesson, the Responsive Reading, the Anthem. It seemed a normal service, and it was hard to realize that the man in the robes was Mudgett. Jimmy Ward preached the sermon, taking for his text “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Much to Mim’s relief, he seemed exactly like Jimmy Ward, stumbling and apologizing and getting tangled in his words.
Afterwards, Mudgett made the announcements: coffee after the service, a fellowship dinner on Thursday, a meeting of the Women’s Overseas Mission group to sort clothing for the Vietnamese orphans. “We plan,” he said, “to continue church services on a regular basis while the preacher’s gone. Anyone who wants to help should speak to Mr. Ward or myself after the service.”
“That’s not even the way Red Mudgett talks,” Mim said on the way home.
“He was ever a weasel, that one,” Ma said. “Ain’t nothin’ he could do would surprise me.”
6
The week came when there were no nonessentials left. They couldn’t let Ma’s couch go, and not even Perly could have raised any cash for the kitchen table and benches John had put together from some old planks in the barn. As if he sensed their difficulty, the auctioneer came himself with Gore.
Dixie ran up the path to meet Lassie, her silky tail waving. John watched from the doorway as the two men approached. When they stood on the stoop facing him, he opened the storm door and stepped out to join them.
“There’s nothin’ left, Perly,” he said, his body firmly planted between Perly and his door. “There’s no point you stickin’ round. You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.”
The auctioneer looked down on John, his brown eyes heavy with concern. “You’ve been very generous,” he said slowly. He stood so close that John inched back until he could feel the glass of the door against his shoulder blades.