Acknowledgments
My warmest thanks to Buck Waddell; Derald West; Murray Whisnant; Joyce Alexander; Mitfords attending physician, Dr. Bunky Davant; Mitfords attorney, Tony DiSanti; my editor, Dave Toht; my brother and friend, Barry Setzer; my sister and pal, Brenda Furman; my brother, Randy Setzer, who gave me my writing shirt; Father Jack Podsiadlo; Gina and Allan Morehead; Laura Watts; The Singing Boys of Beacon; and all the book-sellers whose enthusiasm for Mitford is greatly appreciated. Thanks, also, to my readers, to whom I lovingly give a small townand a big familyto call your very own.
PENGUIN BOOKS
A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW
Jan Karon writes to give readers an extended family, and to applaud the extraordinary beauty of ordinary lives. She is the author of nine Mitford novels, At Home in Mitford; A Light in the Window; These High, Green Hills; Out to Canaan; A New Song; A Common Life; In This Mountain; Shepherds Abiding; and Light from Heaven, all available from Penguin. She is also the author of The Mitford Bedside Companion; Jan Karons Mitford Cookbook & Kitchen Reader; A Continual Feast: Words of Comfort and Celebration, Collected by Father Tim; Patches of Godlight: Father Tims Favorite Quotes; The Mitford Snowmen: A Christmas Story; Esthers Gift; and The Trellis and the Seed. Her childrens books include Miss Fannies Hat; Jeremy: The Tale of an Honest Bunny; and Violet Comes to Stay. Coming from Viking in fall 2007 is the first Father Tim Novel, Home to Holly Springs.
www.mitfordbooks.com
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CHAPTER ONE
Close Encounters
Serious thinking and crossing the street, he once said, shouldnt be attempted simultaneously.
The red pickup truck was nearly upon him when he saw it. The shock of seeing it bear down with such ferocious speed sent him reeling backward to the curb, where he crashed in a sitting position. He caught a fleeting glance of the driver, talking on a telephone, as the truck careened around the corner.
Father Tim! Are you all right?
Winnie Iveys expression was so grieved he felt certain he was badly hurt. He let Winnie help him up, feeling a numb shock where hed slammed onto the curb.
Winnies broad face was flushed with anger. That maniac! Who was that fool, anyway?
I dont know. Perhaps Im the fool for not looking where I was going. He laughed weakly.
Youre no such thing! I saw the light, it was still yellow, you had plenty of time to cross, and here comes this truck roarin down on you like a freight train, and somebody in it talkin on a phone.
She turned to the small crowd that had rushed out of the Main Street Grill. A phone in a truck! she said with disgust. Can you believe it? I should have got his license number.
Thank you, Winnie. He put his arm around the sturdy shoulders of the Sweet Stuff Bakery owner. Youve got a special talent for being in the right place at the right time.
Percy Mosely, who owned the Grill, ran out with his spatula in his hand. If I was you, Id ask th good Lord to kick that fellers butt plumb to Wesley. Them poached eggs you eat are now scrambled.
The rector patted his pockets for the heavy office key and checked his wallet. All there. No harm done, he assured his friends. The incident had simply been a regrettably dramatic way to begin his first week home from Ireland.
Though hed spent the summer in Sligo, he found on returning that he hadnt, after all, missed summer in Mitford. His roses bloomed on, the grass lay like velvet under the network of village sprinklers, and parishioners were still leaving baskets of tomatoes on his porch.
As he came up the walk to the rectory, he heard a booming bark from the garage. It was the greeting he had missed every livelong day of his sojourn across the pond.
Since returning home less than a week ago, he had awakened each morning to see Barnabas standing by the bed, staring at him soberly. The inquiry in the eyes of his black Bouvier-cum-sheepdog companion was simple: Are you home to stay, or is this a joke?
He walked through the kitchen and opened the garage door, as Barnabas, who had grown as vast as a bear during his absence, rushed at him with joy. Laying his front paws on the rectors shoulders, he gazed dolefully into the eyes of his master, whose glasses fogged at once.
Come now, old fellow. Slack off!
Barnabas leapt backward, danced for a moment on his hind legs, and lunged forward to give the rector a great lick on the face that sent a shower of saliva into his left ear.
The victim dodged toward his parked Buick and crashed onto the hood with his elbow. Sing and make music in your hearts, he recited loudly from a psalm, always giving thanks to the Father for everything!
Barnabas sat down at once and gazed at him, mopping the garage floor with his tail.
His dog was the only living creature he knew who was unfailingly disciplined by the hearing of the Word. It was a phenomenon that Walter had told over the whole of Irelands West Country.
Lets have a treat, pal. And you, he said to Dooleys rabbit, Jack, will have beet tops. The Flemish giant regarded him with eyes the color of peat.
The house was silent. It wasnt one of Punys days to work, and Dooley was at football practice. He had missed the boy terribly, reading and rereading the one scrawled message he had received in two long months:
I am fine. Barnabus is fine. Im ridin the hair off that horse.
He had missed the old rectory, too, with its clamor and quiet, its sunshine and shadow. Never before in his life as a rector had he found a home so welcoming or comfortablea home that seemed, somehow, like a friend.
He spied the thing on his counter at once. It was Edith Mallorys signature blue casserole dish.
He was afraid of that.
Emma had written to Sligo to say that Pat Mallory had died soon after he left for Ireland. Heart attack. No warning. Pat, she said, had felt a wrenching chest pain, had sat down on the top step outside his bedroom, and after dropping dead sitting up, had toppled to the foot of the stairs, where the Mallorys maid of thirty years had found him just before dinner.
Oh, Mr. Mallory, she was reported to have said, you shouldnt have gone and done that. Were havin lasagna.
Sitting there on the farmhouse window seat, reading Emmas five-page letter, he had known that Edith Mallory would not waste any time when he returned.
Long before Pats death, hed been profoundly unsteadied when she had slipped her hand into his or let her fingers run along his arm. At one point, she began winking at him during sermons, which distracted him to such a degree that he resumed his old habit of preaching over the heads of the congregation, literally.
