Nazareth's Song (27 page)

“Best I load up on some coal.”

Her eyes followed a diner they passed along the way and a sign that said, “This way to Bathhouse Row.” Then she said, “I got a letter from Aunt Kate. I figured Willie probably told you.”

“Good news about your momma, I hope.”

“Same as always. Good day and then a bad day.”

“I think one of these days your momma’s going to sit up in that bed and climb out ready to be her old self again. Next thing you know, she’ll be bossing everybody around, same as you.”

She seemed cheered up by his words. “I can say one thing—I’m glad not to be living in an attic with Effie and her screaming kid.”

“Me too. I’d not have anyone to fight with.”

“Oh, you and me will fight again. You’re dating that lunatic from the bank’s daughter.”

Jeb had taken Winona to Beulah’s the night before and come home smelling like perfume. Angel had noticed it right off. “How nice is that?”

“Something’s not right about her. I don’t know. Can’t put my finger on it. You know she ain’t got Fern Coulter’s brains.”

“Winona’s a smart girl. College educated and better at math than anyone I know.”

“She’s got you figured out, that I know. When she saw you coming, she took one look and knew all it would take was a wiggle of that figure of hers and you’d be slobberin’ like a hound.”

“Let’s change the subject.”

The sun took one last breath and gentled behind the silvering hills.

“It’s getting dark,” said Angel. She shivered.

“Good thing. I can’t wait for a little peace and quiet. This preacher business takes the wind out of you.” He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in the last two weeks.

“It’ll be quiet. Sundays is good for quiet.”

At dawn, Jeb pulled out his best white shirt, laid it across his bed, and picked up his sermon notes to study. The last hour before Sunday breakfast had become sacred, a time of shedding off what remained of the week so that he could stand clean as bleached cotton before the congregation.

As he returned to his bed, he lifted yesterday’s shirt from the chair where he had undressed the night before. Beneath it on the floor laid the folded note from Val. He had forgotten to read it. He carried it with him back to the bed and read it as he leaned back against the feather pillow. Then he sat up. He reread the note, but found it just as mysterious as the first reading. It was not signed by Will Honeysack. Truth be told, he did not recognize the scratched signature at the bottom of the note that looked like “Red,” or perhaps “Fred.” The note read:

Dropped by address on delivery. No one about. Left delivery inside.

Red

Jeb pulled on his socks and padded into the parlor. After looking around the room, he saw no package or parcel. He could not remember ordering anything from Honeysack’s store. He shrugged and decided he would ask Will about the note before the morning’s message.

He dressed early, drank coffee, and then pulled on his coat. As of next week, when they moved back into the parsonage, he would be only a rock’s throw from the church. Like Angel, he had to admit that the move back to the comfortable house behind the church would be a relief.

He woke her up. “I’m driving early to the church. You all ride in with Miss Coulter and don’t give her any lip.”

Angel moaned and then lifted her head. “I’m going, Jeb. Don’t be so bossy. I hope you made coffee. I feel like the dickens.”

“Don’t fall back to sleep,” he told her. He left and went outside to warm up the truck.

The water flowed green and cold under Marvelous Crossing Bridge. He drove behind the chapel and parked in front of the parsonage to leave more room for the new parishioners. The parsonage was dark and had a lonely look about it with the Gracies gone.

A sound caught his ear. He looked up, expecting to see perhaps a flock of geese winging overhead. But this was a murmuring sound, a rising and falling commotion that couldn’t be caused by geese. He waited and heard it again. The sound was coming from inside the church.

He stamped his boots on the rear porch steps before turning the knob and opening the door to the sanctuary. A sudden flapping and clucking caused him to freeze. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Perched along and under the pews of Church in the Dell were two hundred white pullets. The smell from an evening of that many chickens roosting indoors had Jeb covering his nose with his coatsleeve. He coughed, ran out for fresh air, and then staggered back to the doorway to survey the mess.

“What idiot would do this?” He was completely at a loss. It had to be a joke gone awry. Not knowing what else to do, he began chasing the chickens away from the lectern and the altar. But as he herded them down the aisle, more of the feathered creatures flapped around him, hopped, and skidded onto the platform. The noise was deafening.

Every pew was ornamented with feathers and overnight roostings. Jeb checked his watch. Only an hour until the service started.

That is when he remembered the note from Will Honeysack and his nephew Herschel’s delivery of chicks. He yanked it out and read it again. Somebody had messed up the delivery instructions. And over the last month, Herschel’s postponed shipment of chicks had grown into pullets.

Jeb slumped down onto a pew. Soon half the town would be filing in under the tolling church bell. The church bell? He groaned. He had completely forgotten about the bell. He had not had time to think about finding and purchasing a new one. Of course, it was a slight matter compared to the mess he had walked into this morning.

“Tarnation!” he yelled.

The pullets scattered.

Think! Think! He could open the doors and send the pullets out into the freezing cold of morning. But after chasing the young hens out of doors, he’d still have to clean up the parting love gifts left him overnight—in less than an hour. And the birds would surely flock under the trees. Some of them might actually survive. He imagined the birds collecting around the church grounds as people arrived. Somehow he had to get them all gathered into one place and out of sight.

He remembered three slumbering Welbys cozied under a blanket. If he rallied a few men along with the Welbys, they might salvage some of the flock and get them into coops. Maybe Will Honeysack would help. This was, after all, his nephew’s deal.

He tried to imagine explaining that to the head deacon before his first cup of coffee. He shooed a pecking hen away from his feet and bolted for the door.

Angel and Willie ran down the aisle waving and yelping like they were herding cattle. Ida May kept trying to gather pullets into her skirt so she could name each one. Will Honeysack and his visiting nephew Herschel held cages open while the women and the Welbys ran the pullets through the church.

“I’m sick as I can be about this whole delivery business,” Herschel apologized. He had expressed his deepest regrets to Jeb for the botched delivery at least a dozen times, if not more. He had paid two teens, one named Red, to deliver the pullets to Jeb, he said. The boys, down on their luck and in need of some fast money, had mixed up the orders—
Meet Jeb Nubey at said address and ask him where he wants them delivered.
Wanting to be free of the delivery, they had found the back door unlocked, dropped off the pullets, and, just as Herschel had instructed, delivered the cages back to him so they could pick up their money.

“It’s as much my fault as anyone else’s,” said Jeb, trying to ease Herschel’s guilt. “I plumb forgot to ask Ivey about his barn. Then I forgot to look at the note Val handed to me yesterday.”

“Law, they smell like the devil!” said Freda. She and Herschel’s young wife had chased hens and held their noses until they were out of breath.

“So you bought all these chickens, and for what? What’d you think we would do with two hundred of them?” demanded Angel.

“Jeb, the women will finish cleaning up for you. Herschel and I are going to take these out to Long’s barn. We’ll stop him on the way to church and make sure he knows why they’re on his place.”

The sound of car doors slamming outside brought everyone into the aisle.

Willie came running up the pew rows, herding three more pullets ahead of him. “Folks is pulling in to church!” he hollered.

“It smells like a barn in here!” Angel fell back against a pew. “I’m going to become a Methodist. They’re quieter.”

Ida May piped up. “Maybe they’ll think angels has been here.” She blew a handful of feathers into the air.

“I don’t smell anything,” said Jeb. “Act calm, Angel. No one will notice.”

Freda looked worried. Will and Herschel disappeared out the back door.

Angel sat up, picking feathers from her dress. She let out a sigh, grabbed the bucket of soapy water the women had brought over from the parsonage, and shoved it under a pew.

Jeb held out his hand to the first group of women who came through the door. “Morning, ladies! Beautiful day, ain’t it?”

The morning’s sermon went better than Jeb had imagined it might. More than once he witnessed white tufts floating through the air like celestial droppings. Josie Hipps had swatted curiously at them and then gone back to her nodding. Florence Bernard kept sniffing the air but was too polite to comment. Doris Jolly sneezed throughout the entire morning and finally sneaked out the front door altogether until time for the benedictory song.

As Jeb led the congregation in the closing prayer, he heard a clucking sound from the rear of the church. Angel’s and Willie’s heads lifted in unison. A white pullet crossed the aisle between the two last pews and disappeared. Angel said something to Willie.

Jeb raised his voice and tried to drown out the commotion as a wave of muttering shot through the congregation. Eyes peeped open to glance around nervously. As he spoke the final amen, he noticed a few of the women whispering back and forth before politely resuming their forward and genteel postures.

Willie slid out of the pew, the first to hit the aisle. In a flutter of squawking and feathers, he swung the remaining pullet into the air by the feet and then disappeared through the front door.

Jeb quickly descended to the center aisle to draw startled gazes back to the front. “Sister Jolly, lead us as we go, if you will, in a departing chorus. ‘I’ll fly away, oh glory, I’ll fly away . . .’”

Angel hid her face in her hands.

22

T
he chimneys puffed with hazy gray and black smoke, mixing with the late October air. The hollow was cold, and few families had the good fortune to smoke a wild turkey or a goose for a Thanksgiving that was only several weeks away. The Bluetooths had stopped selling their soap and leather along the roadways due to the cold, and most of the merchants had more to sell than the locals were willing to buy. But the pinch of the last two winters was easing, and more families than not were chatting up the need for a Christmas social in the hollow come December.

Jeb could hear Florence Bernard and Freda Honeysack above the din of women who had gathered in the church to plan the festivities. He closed the door to the study and returned to finish the church books. When Gracie had pulled away with his children the church had scarcely had two nickels to rub together. But the past several Sundays’ offerings had brought in some hefty donations from Ace Timber. Jeb studied the signature on the most recent check but did not know the benefactor—a man whose surname was Farnsworth. The first name he could not decipher.

He recorded the check along with the usual dollars, dimes, and pennies given by the Church in the Dell flock. In spite of the increase in attendance, the fact that so many were still out of work while waiting for Ace Timber’s full operation to move in had not increased the giving. Without the Ace Timber donation, Jeb might not have had enough to pay himself or keep the lights on.

He breathed a prayer of thanks and tallied the bank deposit. He still had not made mention to Mills of no longer acting as the deliveryman for the bank, but the banker had not brought up the matter, either. Bringing it up over dinner with Mills as he courted his daughter would have been nothing short of ill-mannered. Besides, the pastorate had begun to fill every minute of the day with house visits.

The raucous laughter out in the sanctuary indicated the committee women were in good spirits. During his two and a half months in the pulpit, Jeb’s approval among the Church in the Dell elect had risen incrementally day by day. He stuck his head out the door and said, “I think that in keeping with the Christmas observance, ladies, we should plan on enjoying a smoked ham from Smithfield’s farm.” A few ladies voiced approval.

“True, Reverend. Best hams in the state,” said Freda.

Florence said, “He’s not a member of the church. I doubt he’ll take much off his price.”

Jeb pulled a couple of bills out of the bank bag and said, “We had a good week. Here’s two dollars to put down on it. Order the ham.”

The ladies cheered.

As Jeb walked the deposit out to his truck, he heard two women conversing in the sunlight near the church drive. One planted pansies near the churchhouse sign while the other complimented her work. She turned in time to see Jeb.

“Morning, Reverend,” said Winona.

Winona had found numerous reasons to visit the church over the last few weeks. She had shown up at the parsonage and enticed Jeb out onto the porch in spite of the cold on many a night after the Welbys had fallen asleep. This morning she held out a bag to him that smelled of things fresh baked. “Momma baked biscuits this morning. I thought you’d like some.” She wore a yellow dress with cherries dancing along the collar. The color made her face sallow. She had always looked fresh from the department store, but today crescents of blue under her eyes made her look as though she nursed a cold.

Jeb thanked her. He accepted her gift and was excusing himself to leave when she said, “We’re still on for Friday night, aren’t we?”

Jeb said, “Of course, just like every Friday night. Willie’s been sick with something, but I figure he’ll be on the mend by Friday.”

“His sister sees to him.”

“Influenza’s going around. Can’t be too careful these days, especially with youngens.” From the looks of her, he half-expected Winona to say that she had been fighting the flu as well, but she changed the subject.