Jan Karon - At home in Mitford
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- Book:At home in Mitford
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- Publisher:Penguin Books
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- Year:1994
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Its easy to feel at home in Mitford. In these high, green hills, the air is pure, the village is charming, and the people are generally lovable. Yet, Father Tim, the bachelor rector, wants something more. Enter a dog the size of a sofa who moves in and wont go away. Add an attractive neighbor who begins wearing a path through the hedge. Now, stir in a lovable but unloved boy, a mystifying jewel theft, and a secret thats sixty years old. Suddenly, Father Tim gets more than he bargained for. And readers get a rich comedy about ordinary people and their ordinary lives.
Jan Karon: author's other books
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Acknowledgments
Warm thanks to Father James Harris, who inspired and encouraged me; to Jerry Burns, who published this book serially in the best of the small-town newspapers, the Blowing Rocket; to my doctor, Charles (Bunky) Davant, III, who also doctors all of Mitford; to Bonnie Setzer, Mary Richardson, and Helen Vennard for their support; to my daughter, who laughed in all the right places; to Mary Tarr and the ladies of our volunteer library; to our local police department; and to everyone who buys this book about a small town that does more than exist in the imaginationit really is out there.
CHAPTER ONE
Barnabas
He left the coffee-scented warmth of the Main Street Grill and stood for a moment under the green awning.
The honest cold of an early mountain spring stung him sharply.
He often noted the minor miracle of passing through a door into a completely different world, with different smells and attractions. It helped to be aware of the little things in life, he told himself, and he often exhorted his congregation to do the same.
As he headed toward the church office two blocks away, he was delighted to discover that he wasnt walking, at all. He was ambling.
It was a pleasure he seldom allowed himself. After all, it might appear that he had nothing else to do, when in truth he always had something to do.
He decided to surrender himself to the stolen joy of it, as some might eat half a box of chocolates at one sitting, without remorse.
He arrived at the office, uttering the prayer he had offered at its door every morning for twelve years: Father, make me a blessing to someone today, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
As he took the key from his pocket, he felt something warm and disgustingly wet on his hand.
He looked down into the face of a large, black, mud-caked dog, whose tail began to beat wildly against his pant leg.
Good grief! he said, wiping his hand on his windbreaker.
At that, the dog leaped up and licked his face, sending a shower of saliva into his right ear.
Get away! Be gone! he shouted. He tried to protect the notebook he was carrying, but the dog gave it a proper licking before he could stuff it in his jacket, then tried to snatch it from him.
He thought of running, but if anyone saw him fleeing before a shaggy, mud-caked dog, everybody in town would know it within the half hour.
Down! he commanded sharply, at which the dog leaped up and gave his chin a bath.
He tried to fend the animal off with his elbow, while inserting the key in the office door. If he were a cussing man, he reasoned, this would offer a premier opportunity to indulge himself.
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, he quoted in a loud voice from Ephesians, but that which is good to the use of edifying ... Suddenly, the dog sat down and looked at his prey with fond admiration.
Well, now, he said irritably, wiping the notebook on his sleeve. I hope youve got that nonsense out of your system. At this, the dog leaped up, stood on its hind legs, and put its vast paws on the rectors shoulders.
Father Tim! Father Tim! It was his part-time secretary, Emma Garrett.
He stood helpless, his glasses fogged with a typhoon of moist exhalations.
Whop! Emma laid a blow to the dogs head with her pocketbook. Then, blam, she hit him again on the rear flank.
And dont come back! she shouted, as the yelping dog fled into a hedge of rhododendron and disappeared.
Emma gave him her handkerchief, which was heavily scented with My Sin. That wasnt a dog, she said with disgust, that was a Buick!
In the office, he went directly to the minuscule bathroom and washed his face and hands. Emma called through the door. Ill have your coffee ready in a jiffy!
Blast! Make it a double! he replied, combing the hairs that remained on the top of his head.
As he walked out of the bathroom, he looked at his secretary for the first time that morning. That he recognized her at all was remarkable. For Emma Garrett, full of the promise of spring, had dyed her gray hair red.
Emma! he said, astounded. Is that you?
This, she said with feeling, is the most me youve seen in years. That ol gray-headed stuff is not me at all! She turned her head both ways, so he could get the full effect.
He sighed with a mixture of delight and despair. He had hoped this might be an ordinary morning.
Harold Newland had brought the mail earlier than usual and, since Emma had gone to the bank, put it in a neat pile on the rectors desk. At the bottom of the pile, in reverse order of its importance, was the letter from the bishop.
He had asked the bishop to take his time, not to hurry his reply, and he had not. In fact, it had been a full two months since his own letter had been so thoughtfully written and posted.
He stared at the ivory envelope. There was no return address; this was not official stationery. If one did not know that distinctive, looping handwriting so well, one would never guess the sender.
He dared not open it here. No, he wanted complete privacy in which to read it. Would it be in the bishops own hand? If so, he would then have a precise sense of how seriously his remarks had been taken.
Years ago, his seminary friend had been moved by the Apostle Pauls comment that the letter he wrote to the Galatians was by my own hand, as if it were an act of great personal sacrifice. As a young seminarian, Stuart Cullen had taken that to heart. Since his installation as bishop, he was known to personally pen all the letters of real importance to his diocese. How did he have the time, people inevitably wondered. Well, that was the whole point. He didnt. Which, of course, made his handwritten and reflective letters a treasure to anyone who received an example.
No, he would not open it, if only to see whether a secretary had typed it. He would wait until evening and the solitude of the rectory, and the peace of his newly dug garden.
After an early supper, he sat on the stone bench that was half-covered with a fine moss, under the overhanging branches of the rhododendron.
He read the letter, which was, indeed, handwritten in the large, exuberant style that demanded space to gallop across the page.
Dearest Timothy:
It is a good evening to sit in this pleasant room and write a letter. Correspondence is, for me, a luxurywhich stirs my sensibilities, especially if it be with an old friend.
I believe youd enjoy the way Martha refurbished my disorderly bookshelves, and put this study into working condition. She has even had your favorite rug repaired, so that when you come again, you wont stumble over the torn patch and go reeling headfirst into the armchair!
You ask if I have ever faced such a thing as you are currently facing. My friend, exhaustion and fatigueare a committed priests steady companions, and there is no way around it. It is a problem of epidemic proportions, and I ask you to trust that you arent alone. Sometimes, hidden away in a small parish as you are nowand as I certainly have beenone feels that the things which press in are pointed directly at ones self.
I can assure you this is not the case.
An old friend who was a pastor in Atlanta said this: I did not have a crisis of faith, but of emotionand energy. Its almost impossible for leaders of a congregation to accept that their pastor needs pastoring.I became beat up, burned out, angry and depressed.
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