Stephanie Mittman (3 page)

“But Sarah was just a baby then. She wasn’t …” Like lightning, it struck her. And suddenly, finally, so much made sense. “Sarah caught it from Seth.”

Ansel nodded. “That’s why he became a doctor, I always figured.”

“Poor Seth.”

“Losing Sarah had to be hard for him. He really thought, when he came back from Philadelphia, that he could cure her.”

“He gave her much more time than Doc Spinner thought she’d have.”

“I suppose you pointed that out to him,” Ansel said, just as the little bell rang above the shop door.

Abby turned around, ready to see to a customer, but found her father in the doorway instead. His small shoulders were hunched, and his cherubic face was almost hidden by a black muffler that Abby’s mother had made. Only his eyes, wet from the cold air and bright with excitement, were clearly visible.

“God bless the Holy Trinity!” he said, then blushed slightly and waved away the words as ridiculous while he unwrapped his muffler to reveal his clerical collar. “Praise heaven for the bright blue air and the clean, crisp sky.” And then he sneezed, dug for a hankie in his inner pocket, and blew his nose thoroughly before looking heavenward. “Testing my strength, are You? A cold shall not lay me low, nor all the plagues deter me. I am a man with a mission.”

Abby could not remember a time when her father hadn’t been a man with a mission. The mission might be to feed the town’s hungry, to shelter its poor, or it might be to have the shiniest shoes on Sunday so that they would reflect the Lord’s light right back up into the heavens.

Ever since the church had burned down at Christmastime her father had only one mission in mind—to replace the little white church in the woods with a grand affair in the center of town. Late one night he’d
admitted to her that he was afraid that since he was only a lay pastor, if he didn’t have a church, the bishop in Iowa City would turn his parish back over to a circuit preacher—a fate Abby knew he considered worse than death.

“What is it this time?” Ansel asked, as irreverent as always. From the time Ansel could talk, no one had ever thought that he would follow in his father’s religious footsteps. Of course, back then her father hadn’t been a minister. He’d been a drunk, and Ansel had never forgiven or forgotten his behavior. “Has God told you how to pay for a new church?”

“Indeed he has,” their father said cheerfully. “The Lord taketh away and the Lord provideth.”

Under his breath, Ansel muttered a quick “Say hallelujah!” while Ezra Merganser took off his heavy overcoat and hung it beside Abby’s.

He put up his hands as if he were at the pulpit and announced, “Joseph Panner has seen the light and shut his eyes in prayer. He has become a citizen of the Kingdom and has decided to make the church the beneficiary of his God-given largess—”

Ansel cranked the press, which moaned loudly. “It sounds like when the Lord
taketh
Joseph,
Joseph
will
provideth
the new church,” he said.

“And where do you think Mr. Panner’s ill-gotten was gained?” their father asked, flapping his arms to warm up and looking rather like a goose trying to take to the air but failing. “Did it fall from the sky, or did God place it at his feet for some greater purpose than to abuse his mind and amuse his body?”

Abby inked the brayer as she spoke. “Papa, stand by
the fire and warm up. I can’t believe you’re this excited about Joseph Panner. I thought that you had no use for him and his evil ways.”

“A pastor looks after his whole flock,” her father said. “Even the stray pig must be found.”

“That’s the stray
lamb
,” Ansel corrected.

“Not in Joseph Panner’s case,” Abby said. “The man has every dirty habit under the sun, living up there in sin in that big house which, if I’m not mistaken, he won along with that gold mine of his in some bawdy-house poker game when he was no doubt well into his cups, I might add!”

“Exactly!” her father said. “The Lord redeemed me when I lost my faith in the bottom of a bottle, and now the Lord has given Joseph Panner a chance to repent. And to save our church along with his own soul! What a wonder God is! Imagine! The Lord sent me to Ridder’s Pond to seek the answer and there it was, drowning!”

“The answer was drowning?” Abby asked.

“That’s right! That’s right! I got to the pond just in time to witness the miracle.”

“How did we get from Ridder’s Pond to Panner’s mine?” Ansel asked. “Did the Lord write some message in the ice?”

“You can doubt all you want, son, but yes, he did. In a way. He carved a circle, and Joseph Panner fell right through it. If I hadn’t come along, he’d have died the sinner that he was, unrepentant, unwelcome in Heaven. But just as I was pulling him out of that frozen hole straight to you-know-where, the Lord spoke to me again and told me that it was a good time to explain to Joseph how leaving his ill-gotten gains to the church
would save his soul—just in case he didn’t make it, that is.” He looked as if his own soul had just been saved. Again. “‘Who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live.’ Clearly, God gave that mine to Joseph Panner so that he could give the profits he made to me.”

“Why didn’t God just give them directly to you and leave out the middleman?” Ansel asked. “And the ice?”

“Because I don’t gamble,” her father said simply. “So how could I have won that mine? And besides, the Lord didn’t need to save me again, Ansel. I’ve already seen the light. I’ve had the gifts and the graces. It was Joseph Panner’s soul that needed saving, and my church that needs building, and with one hole in the ice the good Lord killed two birds.”

“So Panner’s just planning on giving you all his money?” Ansel asked. “Not that I believe he’s got that much left. That mine was played out years ago.”

“The man’s got more gold than Judas. I’m going for Mr. Youtt now so he can draw up the papers for Joseph to sign, as soon as the feeling comes back to his fingers, that is.”

“Did you tell Seth? I mean Dr. Hendon? Has someone gone for him?” Abby asked, pulling off her spectacles and heading for her coat.

“The doctor? My heavens! You don’t think the good Lord saved him from drowning just to—”

“You didn’t tell Seth?” Abby asked, hitting something with her foot and tipping her head to see that it was one of the cats that roamed the
Herald’s
office because she refused to heed Ansel’s warnings not to
feed them. She apologized to the kitten and slipped her coat over her shoulders.

“A doctor? After such a miracle?” Her father appeared confused. “
‘Blessed is he that hears the word of God’
—and I shouted it in his ear till the poor man couldn’t hear anything but the Lord. I’m telling you it was nothing short of a miracle. I summoned the Lord and laid my hands upon Panner’s body. And I could feel his soul rise up in worship!”

“I’m very happy for his soul, Pa. But what about his fingers and toes? Who’s seeing to those?”

For a moment her father looked confused. “I told you. The Lord is—”

“I’m getting Seth,” she said, sidestepping her father but feeling his hand on her shoulder.

“
Seth
, is it? Oh, Abidance. Don’t you go losing your heart, now. Remember, this is the same
Seth
who doesn’t come to church, who refused the sacraments at his sister’s burial. You were surely doing the Lord’s work when you saw to Sarah Hendon when she was alive, God rest her soul. But I see that while I’ve been watching over my flock, your mama and your brother have allowed my littlest, dearest lamb to stray from—”

“All you see is a young lady fetching the doctor for a sick man, the way you should have,” Ansel said, coming toward the door himself. “Don’t go imagining things. Abidance is no more interested in the good doctor than I was in his sister.”

Abby supposed she would have stood there all day, her breath caught in her throat, her jaw dropped, her brother’s words ringing in her ears, had Ansel not all but pushed her out the door.

S
ETH HAD GRABBED HIS MEDICAL BAG AND HURRIED
to Joseph Panner’s home, Abby on his heels, despite his telling her to go back to the newspaper office. He was glad now that she’d come along, since he needed help with the cold dressings he was applying to Mr. Panner’s fingers and toes in hopes of saving the frostbitten digits.

“I’m telling you,” Joseph Panner said, his teeth chattering so that it was hard to make out his words. “This was the biggest walleye you ever saw. That fish was big last fall, but he’s ready for me now.”

“Can you feel anything when I touch here?” Seth asked Panner, running his fingernails against the end of Panner’s toes and ignoring the man’s fish story.

“He can feel the Lord in every breath,” Abby’s father, who had been hanging back in the doorway until now, hollered.

“Great, but it’d be a shame to save his soul and lose his toes, don’t you think?” Seth responded, gently rubbing the unnaturally white skin and directing Abby to do the same to the toes on the man’s other foot. She
was good in an emergency—better than he expected from a girl her age, not to mention the upbringing she’d had.

“Oh, just so, just so. But it was the Lord saved this man,” Reverend Merganser said to Seth as he watched him work. “Dr. Hendon, that was the Lord’s hand.”

“It was your hands,” Panner said, his voice quivering with chills. “You pulled me out of that ice, Reverend, and I owe you my life.”

The reverend’s face colored, and he waved away the gratitude with his hand. Then his eyes got big and round, and he said, almost as if he were surprised at the revelation, “The Lord brought me to that spot, that very spot, at that very moment, just to do His will. Why, I never go past that old pond. And yet today I was drawn to it. Oh, ye of little faith! Oh,
me
of little faith! I woke up thinking that perhaps my church would never be—that I would remain forever a believer without a home, a servant without quarters in which to do my work for the Lord.”

Her father looked out the window and shook his head in amazement. “Just when I was sure that the bishop would decide to take back my appointment, seeing as how I barely passed my course of study and it was only because the town built a church and there wasn’t another minister around that he let me be the pastor in the first place….” He mumbled this last, then, in a stronger voice, added, “And now, when I was at the end of my rope, He made a loop for me to hold on to—the means to build my church!”

Panner smiled weakly. “I still can’t feel my toes, Doc,” he said, raising his head to see over his belly and
down to where Seth and Abby were gently rubbing his stiff toes.

“That’s not surprising,” Seth said. “You were in the pond a while. It’ll take some time for the flesh to thaw.”

“Can’t I just stick ‘em in a tub of hot water?” Panner asked, his voice still quivering. “I’m not going to lose my toes, am I?”

“Well,” Seth began, not one to lie to a patient, but not anxious to have the man panic, either. “I don’t—” he began, only to have Abby interrupt him.

“So, Mr. Panner,” she said, her voice light, as if the man weren’t in the least bit of danger of losing his toes. “I’ve never played poker. What do you have to do to win?”

“Abidance!” her father gasped, but Seth knew that Abby was just trying to distract Panner. And it was working. Panner’s voice came out stronger and clearer as he answered her.

“You gotta be braver and smarter than the next fellow,” he said, and Seth thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a little bit of pink now to Panner’s big toe. “You gotta have a good bluffing face, Miss Abby. Like you believe you’ve got a winning hand despite the cards you mighta gotten dealt.”

“That sounds remarkably like my father’s philosophy,” Abby said, pointing out to Seth that there definitely was a pinkness to Panner’s big toe. “Only he calls it blind faith.”

Panner laughed, his laughter even louder than the reverend’s. “Maybe there is some similarity there. But I’ve always thought your father really did believe he
was holding the winning hand, and I was just pretending. Till now, that is.”

“Did you practice that bluffing face in the mirror?” Abby asked him. “Can anybody develop one? Do you think I could?” She made one of the million faces that used to amuse Sarrie so, and aimed it right at Seth.

“Abidance Merganser,” he said, adding a bit of warmer water to the wrappings around Panner’s feet. “You couldn’t lie if your life depended on it. Everything you think is on that face of yours like you inked it and printed it at the
Herald
.”

Abby batted her eyelids at him as if she were capable of keeping even the smallest of secrets, which he knew darned well she wasn’t, and smiled what he supposed she imagined to be a mysterious smile.

“Looks to me like you’ll be all right, Mr. Panner,” Seth said, gently bending and flexing each toe. “It’ll take a while, and I ought to see you in my office in a day or two to make sure that the damage isn’t permanent. Sometimes things look just fine and then gangrene sets in ‘cause the tissue’s dead.”

“I could lose my toes?” Panner asked, looking from Seth to the reverend as if somehow Merganser could stop that from happening.