Nazareth's Song (31 page)

Jeb’s fingers drummed the chair arms. He stared at the floor and then said, “Let me know if Smithfield can take the smaller down payment.” Before she could get out of the building, he stepped out of the office and said, “Florence, maybe we should settle for the smaller ham.”

She pressed her lips into a frozen smile and said, “Whatever you say, Reverend.”

After she left, Jeb knew that his pride was the only thing keeping him from telling Florence the social should be cancelled. At least to tell Smithfield that the church would need to order a smaller ham might have removed some of the weight of the money woes. But the levity of the party preparations had lifted the spirits of so many of the women that it seemed a sin to change plans midstream.

He prepared the bank deposit but instead of heading for the bank, he left it in the small safe beneath his desk. It seemed best not to let Mills know how little the church had to deposit.

The sound of slamming automobile doors brought him to his feet. When he stepped out into the sanctuary, he found Deputy Maynard hauling Edward Bluetooth inside. “I caught him, Reverend!”

Edward’s contorted face softened when he saw Jeb. “Preacher, you’ll vouch for me. He won’t listen to me.”

Maynard threatened to backhand the boy, but Jeb stepped in. “Deputy, I do know this boy. What’s the problem?”

“Guess what I found him melting down out in his momma’s barn. Nothing but the stolen church bell.”

“I’d never do that!” Edward yelled.

“Edward, you took the bell?” Jeb asked.

“He won’t listen to me. He wouldn’t listen to my momma, neither, so what’s the use?”

“Maynard, let him go. I’d like to hear what he has to say.” Jeb patted the pew and invited Edward to take a seat.

Edward jerked away from the deputy and joined Jeb on the pew. “Reverend Gracie bought some of my leather one day. We got to talking, and he asked me what else I could do. I told him I could do lots of things. So he asked me about the church bell, if I could come take a look at it. I came one day and no one was around. So I climbed up all the way into the steeple and saw the bell needed fixing bad. So I decided to surprise Reverend Gracie and take it home in my wagon. I left him a note. Didn’t he tell you?”

“Reverend Gracie grew sick, Edward. He’s gone home to Cincinnati. He was in the hospital awhile. I’m sure he forgot to mention your repair of the bell.”

“I fixed it real good. It’s ready to hang, only before I could get it back into my wagon, this deputy arrested me.”

“You don’t believe him, do you, Reverend?”

“I’d stake my life on it,” said Jeb. He stood. “On behalf of the Church in the Dell, Deputy Maynard, please release Edward. He’s a good boy. I’ll vouch for him.”

“I hope you’re not sorry, Reverend.”

Jeb waited for the deputy to leave. “I’ll give you a ride back home, Edward.” He invited Edward into the parsonage. “I need to make a list of things I need from the store. I’ll only be a minute.”

Jeb quickly inspected their pantry and found last week’s canned goods running low and a sack of dried beans only half full. The coal scuttle was close to empty; he would have to get up several times in the night to stoke the potbellied stove with more wood. He counted his folding money. After paying for a new truck part, giving money to the Wolvertons to buy coal oil, and taking Winona Mills to the Candelight Café for an expensive evening, Jeb had two dollars left.

The thought of the Bluetooths’ land offer lying atop Mills’ desk waiting for him to buckle under the weight of the Ace Timber land scheme left Jeb feeling sick at heart. He would ask Edward about their situation.

Edward sat smiling out in his truck. On the way out to the Bluetooth land, Jeb said, “Tell me how your momma’s doing, Edward.”

“Not so good. I think Reverend Gracie thought that if he gave me work, it would help our family.”

It had escaped Jeb that Edward would need payment for the bell. He reached into his pocket and found he had a small amount of cash.

“I know we Bluetooths don’t show up at the whites’ church, but even so, my momma prays every night. I fixed the bell for her. So no charge to you, Preacher.”

“I’m paying you anyway, Edward.”

“I can’t take it. I did it to bring a blessing on my momma. She needs one right about now.”

Jeb drove him home. The two of them together loaded the repaired church bell onto the truck. “Looks like a new bell, Edward.”

“Just in time. Momma needs a miracle.”

Jeb pulled away from the Bluetooths’. He was headed for the Bank of Nazareth.

Horace Mills found Jeb’s request humorous. “A loan, Reverend? Why? Is the church in trouble?”

“I’ll use my truck as collateral, if need be. I want to see Church in the Dell make it through the winter. It’s best I don’t take a salary for a while.”

“No offense, Reverend, but your truck could be hauled away for scrap metal.”

“Gracie tried to warn me, but I wanted to trust you. Ace Timber is nothing but a front to take land from people in Nazareth—”

“That haven’t planned for the future.”

Winona had said that, Jeb remembered.

“But it’s no front, Reverend. You’re wrong about that. Ace Timber’s a legitimate partnership and a company that has blown into our town like a breath of fresh air. Reverend, you have to remember that you are a charity and I’m a lending institution. My business
is
business. When a man like Asa Hopper or those Indian Bluetooths squander what they own frivolously, get behind on their payments, it’s my place on behalf of my shareholders to make the hard decisions. When you stepped in to bring a healing balm to these tough decisions, I felt it was good for the bank and for the town—a way to show people that we aren’t coldhearted. Most banks are foreclosing. We’re finding buyers for those that are in trouble.”

“Ace Timber is taking advantage of the poor, Mr. Mills. The office of the clergy can’t be used to help land sharks. Now I’m asking you to front the church a loan. My truck is surely worth something.”

“You going to walk from house to house to visit the sick and dying when you lose that truck? Church in the Dell would not be here if it weren’t for men like Jefferson Watts, and yes, even me—men willing to step in and see that this town gets to keep a spiritual token in spite of hard times. Church in the Dell is that spiritual token, and you have the privilege of passing out that token every Sunday and Wednesday. Everybody needs hope, and somebody has to pay the bill for that kind of hope. You try and make it more than that and you’re elevating your station higher than any of us intended.”

“I’m wasting your time,” Jeb said.

“Take this blasted offer to the Bluetooths and tell them that signing on the dotted line is for their own good!” Mills pulled out his wallet. He counted out several twenty dollar bills. “This is your pay for you and those ruffian children you insist on keeping around.” He counted out another stack. “You give this to Ethel Bluetooth just for signing. She’s down to her last can of soup, I hear. Hurry now, and get this money to them before they starve, Reverend. When you look back on this later, you’ll remember this day as one where you were savior to a hungry family. Give yourself back your dignity. Begging’s for railroad tramps, not men of the cloth.” He scooped up the cash and walked around the desk to meet Jeb face-to-face.

Jeb felt the cash and the Ace Timber offer slide into his hands. He felt weak, as though he had taken a punch in the stomach. Mona opened the door and let him out. She slipped into the banker’s office with more papers for Mills to sign. Jeb heard her ask Mills why he insisted on being so generous with the ones who would never appreciate his efforts. Mills replied, “If it weren’t for my daughter’s insistence, and a promise to Philemon Gracie, I’d not give this charlatan preacher the time of day.”

Ethel Bluetooth stirred a boiling pot of lye soap out by their front porch. Edward sat on the front steps with the afternoon sun warming his head. He formed a scrap of leather around cardboard in the shape of a shoe sole.

“Preacher!” Edward yelled. “Momma, it’s the preacher I’ve been telling you about. You know he picked up the bell.”

“Your boy has a talent, Mrs. Bluetooth.”

“I’m sorry you haven’t seen me around your church. Some people don’t like it when I bring my boys around. I think the old people still have funny ideas about Indians. Edward, go inside and bring out two cakes of soap for the preacher.” She looked at Jeb. “On the house.”

Jeb tried to turn her down, but she said, “We’re not selling much right now anyway.”

“The banker told me that you might be needing some money for food,” said Jeb.

She spat on the ground. “Horace Mills ain’t nothing but a robber, a big bandit out taking people’s houses from them. Like he did the Hoppers’.” She drew out the paddle and propped it against the porch railing. Then she grew stiff, blinked once, and said to Jeb, “It isn’t true you’re helping Mills and that timber company take people’s land from them, is it? I never believed none of that about you.”

Jeb turned the envelope over twice in his hand without looking up.

Ethel saw the envelope. She took two steps toward him and said, “I’ve defended you, Reverend, every single time.”

Jeb saw Edward standing in the doorway listening to his momma question Jeb. “You’d never work for Mills, would you, Preacher?”

The wad of cash in Jeb’s pocket felt like an anchor weight. He drew it out, hoping the cash would soften the blow. “Mills asked me to give this to you, to help with your groceries for a while.”

“You think I ought to sign those papers, Reverend?” Ethel began to cry.

Jeb moved toward the porch. He laid the cash on Ethel’s porch and then backed away. “No, ma’am, I truly don’t. As a matter of fact, I’m taking these papers back to Mills and telling him that I wouldn’t let you sign them. I don’t know how far behind you are on payments, but surely if enough people know about this, they’ll help.”

“Help the wife of a Cherokee? You tryin’ to be funny, Reverend?”

“If we don’t sign the papers, we can’t keep the money,” said Edward. He scooped up the cash and tried to give it back to Jeb.

“Consider it a loan, one backed up by Church in the Dell. Mrs. Bluetooth, you go and buy your family some necessaries. I’ll take these papers back to the bank and tell them you need more time, that you plan to keep your land.”

Ethel ran up to Jeb and threw herself against him. “Reverend, I never saw no one do nothin’ like this. You’re not like any preacher I ever saw.” She cried.

Jeb excused himself. He tucked the money that Mills had paid him in advance for making the delivery back into the bank envelope with the unsigned documents.

He didn’t know how the rest of the day would turn out. But at least for the Bluetooths, it would be a better one.

An old rowboat had been left tied up for the winter beneath Marvelous Crossing Bridge. Jeb pulled one end of the rope and brought the boat to shore. He rubbed the splintered wood and studied the inside of the craft. It had not taken on any water. He picked up a cane pole from inside the boat as he stepped into it and, using the thick end of the pole, pushed away from shore. He buttoned his coat, the woolen one that Winona had found so handsome. The last two mornings had not given way to a warm afternoon. The sky had clouded after he left the Bluetooths. By Christmas, if the cold weather persisted, the land would be a hard shell of frozen crust. Jeb shivered.

The boat passed a cottage that had once been overgrown with lilies and a cloud of butterflies. The winter had turned the leftover flowers of last spring into a thick patch of tough brown reeds. Jeb had taken Fern on a boat ride past this cottage once. He remembered how taken in she had been by the gardens and cottage—and taken in by him.

He allowed the craft to drift, driven by a northern wind. The boat passed by shacks and shorelines littered with old rusted bicycles and other abandoned items.

It seemed to him everything that had bloomed in his life had died and been left to rot. The children he had taken in were growing up wild and as near starvation and need as when he had first found them hidden like refugees in the back of his truck. His role model had been taken from him, sick and possibly destined to live out the last of his years on medication and sedatives. His dream of leading Church in the Dell as a respected leader had taken him back to his point of beginning, a man who lived among suspicion and mistrust by those who had extended their faith in him. The harder he worked to succeed, the more pain he felt he brought to those around him. The worst part was not that he had somehow gotten entangled with the wrong woman, but that he had let the best one slip away. For the life of him, he could not remember why he had elected to serve in the office of clergy. Somehow the mission had lost its meaning.

Jeb pushed the cane deep into the water to keep the boat near shore. But he had drifted too far, and the pole could find no bottom from which to push off of. He laid it inside the hull of the boat and rubbed his arms vigorously. He would have to wait for the boat to drift closer to shore.

Jeb questioned God. Gracie had taught him to do that in times of crisis—to ask God the hard questions, to look in the Bible for answers. But the more he thought about his role in Nazareth, the more he hated what he had become. He thought of the Hoppers wandering the roadways like nomads with no place to call home. Then he imagined Angel coming home from school, expectant of a long-awaited trip to the Woolworth’s to buy stockings for her brother and sister but being told that things had changed. The lack of money seemed to echo across the water with no one to hear.

Jeb could not understand how a body could get in so much trouble just by following the so-called leading of the Spirit. Philemon Gracie had a gracious manner about him, even when life took him through troubled waters. Jeb realized what a far cry his life was from Gracie’s. Men like him were cut from finer cloth, hand tailored by unseen hands for the pulpit. Jeb had fooled himself into thinking that he could rise to the occasion with any sense of purpose and mission.

He pulled his coat tighter, turning up the collar around his throat. That is when he felt a cold prick against his chest. With one hand he drew out the chain that held the trinket given to him by Philemon Gracie. With the other he clasped ahold of the key, turned it over, and whispered, “Do Not Lay Down Your Plow.”