Just Shy of Harmony (8 page)

Sam pulled the car behind the meetinghouse and walked inside. Frank looked up from his desk.

“How’d your visit go with Wayne?” he asked.

“Better than I’d hoped.”

“Hope. Isn’t that a lovely word?”

In his advancing years, Frank is softening. He’s taken down the sign over his desk that read, I Can Only Help One Person Each Day. Today Is Not Your Day. Tomorrow Doesn’t Look Good Either.

“It is a lovely word,” Sam agreed.

“You know what Emily Dickinson said about hope, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t come to mind.”

“She said, ‘Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.’”

“That’s beautiful. What’s it mean?”

“I’m not exactly certain. But I think it means that hope keeps singing its song. And even if we can’t always hear it, it’s still being sung.”

Sam thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I suppose that’s precisely what it means.”

A
sa and Jessie Peacock hadn’t realized being rich could be such a tribulation. They’d been wealthy only a month and a half and were already tired.

Vernley Stout from the bank had met with them to plan their investments. “The trick,” Vernley explained, “is to let your money work for you.”

Jessie was a little put out with Vernley. When they had opened their savings account twenty years ago, the bank had given them a free toaster, which was now on the blink. She had thought of buying a toaster, but had decided against it. “Let’s wait and see what the bank will do,” she’d told Asa.

She kept waiting for Vernley to say something about a new toaster, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d talked about mutual funds and annuities and other complexities Jessie and Asa didn’t understand.

She began to drop hints to Vernley about wanting a new toaster.

“I sure could use a new toaster,” she remarked one day in his office. “Ours is worn out. I heard the bank
over in Cartersburg is giving a toaster away with every new account. And not a piddly two-slot toaster either. A four-slotter with a built-in bagel slicer.”

But Vernley never took the hint.

J
essie wasn’t accustomed to having all this money. She’d walk down the small-appliance aisle at Kivett’s Five and Dime, studying the toasters. Reading the prices, she’d shake her head.

Maybe I can pick one up at a garage sale somewhere, she’d think.

It was the little things that threw her. Deciding to give her church three hundred and fifty thousand dollars came automatically. But spending thirty dollars on a toaster had preoccupied her for weeks.

She thought the money would ease her life, though that hadn’t happened. She had been getting irate letters from an antigambling organization, the Network Against Gambling (NAG). When she’d first refused the lottery money, they’d written a story about her in the NAG newsletter. She had been the NAG poster child. But now that she’d accepted the money, the members of NAG were turning on her.

One day Clarence the mailman brought a letter from a woman up north near Fort Wayne. Jessie sat at her kitchen table and read it.

I’ve caused a little one to stumble. Lord, forgive me, Jessie prayed.

She showed the letter to Asa.

“Well, all I can say is she must not have had much of a faith to start with,” he said. “A person like that, they have a head cold and it causes them to question the Lord. Don’t worry about it, Jessie—it’s not your fault.”

But she did worry about it. The newspaper from the city had carried a story about NAG falling on hard times. The president of NAG laid it right at Jessie’s feet.

“Basically, we’re out of money. When you can’t even persuade Christians not to gamble, you’re sunk. The donations have dried up. We’re twelve thousand dollars in the hole. We’ll probably have to close our doors, and then, mark my words, there’ll be casinos and organized crime and harlots prowling our streets. You watch and see.”

Lord, what have I done? I cared only for my own comfort. I sold out. Lord, forgive me, Jessie prayed.

There’d been no consoling her. It had been the worst month and a half of her life. She called the state lottery office to see if they’d take the money back, but they wouldn’t. She wanted to buy a toaster, then give the rest of the money away. She talked about it with Asa at the supper table in late September.

“We need to be shed of that money. Every day it sits
in our bank account is a charge against our souls,” she warned.

“I thought I could use some of it to finish rebuilding the barn. I need to get that barn up. I’ve nowhere to put the tractor.”

“That barn is becoming a monument to our sin. We’ve made a mistake. Let’s not compound our error.”

Asa groaned. “Aw, Jessie, can’t we keep the money? It’s been so nice having a little extra. And what about our kids? Sure, they’re on their own and doing okay, but what if one of them got sick? What then?”

“We can do what we did before we had the money. We can trust God to care for our needs.”

“Oh, Jessie, you know I trust the Lord. You know I do.”

“Good, then getting rid of that money will be an easy matter.”

B
ut it hadn’t been easy. They had put over three million dollars in certificates of deposit at Vernley’s bank. Every month, Vernley sends them a check for twenty thousand dollars. Jessie and Asa have no idea what to do with it.

Jessie had sent ten thousand dollars to Brother Norman’s shoe ministry to the Choctaw Indians, which infuriated the Friendly Women’s Circle of Harmony Friends Meeting. The Circle had raised seven hundred dollars for Brother Norman at their annual Chicken Noodle Dinner during the Corn and Sausage Days festival. They were so proud. It was the most money they’d ever raised for the shoe ministry.

Jessie was the treasurer of the Circle. She’d sent
Brother Norman a check from the Circle, and had enclosed her personal check for ten thousand dollars. Brother Norman had sent a thank-you card, which Frank the secretary had posted on the meetinghouse bulletin board.

“This is a fine state of affairs,” Fern Hampton complained. “You work all year making noodles and you get a little P.S. thank you. But you can sell your soul and hit it rich, and people call you a saint. That’s a fine how-do-you-do.”

Every time Jessie and Asa gave money away, it made someone mad. They donated another ten thousand dollars to the town for a new playground for the children. They’d done it anonymously, but Bob Miles had figured it out and written about it in the Herald. Anonymous Donors Give Money for Playground read the headline, but he had put Jessie and Asa’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary picture underneath it.

Someone clipped out the article and put it in the hymnbook on Jessie and Asa’s pew at church. They had written across the article, Some people will do anything to get their picture in the paper.

The next Sunday,
Jessie opened the hymnal to number 127 to sing “Blessed Assurance” and the article floated to the floor at Dale Hinshaw’s feet.

Dale reached down, picked it up, and handed it to Jessie, saying, “Proverbs 16:18.” That was all he said. Proverbs 16:18.

During the quiet time, Jessie looked it up in her Bible. Pride goeth before a fall, she read.

She wanted to cry, sitting there in church, but she waited until she got home.

“And to think I gave Dale Hinshaw a chicken for his Scripture egg project,” Asa fumed. “I’ve half a mind to take that chicken back.”

He stewed about it for several days. Then on Tuesday he drove into town to Dale’s house and knocked on his door.

“Hi, Asa. What brings you here?”

“I’ve come for my chicken.”

“Uh, I thought it was mine to keep. Besides, it’s one of my best layers.”

“You should have thought of that before you insulted my wife.”

“Boy, Fern Hampton was right when she said what she said.”

“What did Fern say?”

“She said this money would go to your head and you’d forget who your friends were.”

“I think we’re finding out who our friends really are,” Asa said, his voice rising. “And we’ve sure been surprised.”

“I’ll get your chicken.”

Dale turned and clomped down the stairs to his base
ment. Asa could hear squawking, then Dale reappeared at the door with the chicken. He thrust it toward Asa.

“Here’s your chicken. I’m just sorry it’s come to this.”

“No sorrier than I am.”

“Does this mean you won’t be making a donation toward the Scripture egg project?”

Asa didn’t hear him. He was walking away, the chicken under his arm.

A
sa didn’t tell Jessie what had happened. She’s the type who worries about hurting people’s feelings. She worries about the woman from Fort Wayne who wrote the letter. She worries about the people from NAG and what they think of her. She’s been brooding about the newspaper clipping in their hymnal.

“Never mind them,” Asa tells her. “They’re all busy-bodies. It’s none of their business what we do.”

Jessie dreaded the twenty-seventh day of the month, when the check came from the bank.

Clarence the mailman brought their September check on a Thursday. The window was bowed out from where he’d tried to see inside. He could just read the Pay to the order of part. Just enough to whet his interest.

“What do you think we ought to do with it?” Jessie asked Asa at the supper table.

“Well, I tell you one thing. We gave away the first check and it brought us nothing but heartache. I say we blow this one on ourselves.”

They packed their suitcases the next afternoon and
drove to the city to eat in a revolving restaurant atop a thirty-story building. They could see the water towers in the outlying towns, rising up like medieval towers. They took a room at a hotel that put chocolate mints on the pillows.

Asa poked around the bathroom. “Lookee here—shoeshine cloths. And they’re free!”

“And there’s a real safe in the closet,” Jessie said. “With a combination and everything!”

They watched TV, then went to bed. They woke up the next morning and ordered breakfast in. A man brought it to their room. It cost sixteen dollars. Asa gave him a twenty and told him to keep the change. They ate in bed, savoring the moment. It was the closest thing they’d ever had to a honeymoon. The only time they’d stayed in a hotel was the night before their daughter’s wedding.

Asa smiled at Jessie. Jessie smiled back.

“Care for a strawberry?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you. Would you like some more tea?”

“Please.” She poured him tea from a silver service.

Asa smiled at Jessie. Jessie smiled back.

“You look particularly lovely, Mrs. Peacock.”

“And you’re quite handsome.”

Asa leaned back in bed and sighed. “You know, with all our money, we could maybe hire us a man to bring us breakfast in bed every Saturday.”

Jessie laughed.

They finished their breakfast, then packed their bags, paid their bill, and drove west toward Harmony. Three miles from town they crested a hill and could see the town water tower in back of the school.

“Land ho,” Asa cried out.

Jessie smiled. They rolled into town. Past Harvey Muldock’s car dealership and the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop. They stopped at the light next to Kivett’s Five and Dime and waited for the light to turn.

“Honey, would you mind pulling over there in front of Kivett’s?” Jessie asked, pointing to an empty space.

The light changed to green. Asa wrestled the truck into first gear and eased up in front of Kivett’s.

“Why are we stopping here?” he asked.

“I’m going to buy a toaster. A four-slot toaster with a built-in bagel slicer, and I don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m tired of caring what people think. We’re going to do what we want and use the money however we wish, and if people don’t like it, tough bananas.”

She carried the toaster all the way home on her lap. She opened the box at the kitchen table and read the directions, then toasted four pieces of bread to a golden brown perfection.

She took her mother’s silver service from the china cabinet in the living room and brewed a pot of tea. They sat at the table eating toast with strawberry jam, drinking their tea.

“Care for some more tea?” she asked Asa after a while.

“Please.”

They ate in a companionable silence.

Jessie finished her toast and wiped her mouth. She sipped her tea. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Vernley’s sending us twenty thousand dollars a month, but we can live on two thousand and that’s with you quitting your job at the poultry plant. We break even with the farming. Why don’t we give away the rest of it as the Lord leads us.”

Asa smiled at her across the table. “You’re a fine woman, Jessie Peacock.”

“But first things first. How much money do we need to finish the barn?”

“Erven thinks it’ll run another six thousand dollars, all told. That’s with him and me doing the work.”

“That leaves us twelve thousand dollars to give away this month. And I know just the folks to send it to.”

She reached in her purse, pulled out their checkbook, and wrote a check for twelve thousand dollars to the Network Against Gambling.

“That ought to stir ’em up,” Jessie said.

Asa laughed. “Jessie Peacock, you have a flair for the ironic.”

She put the check in an envelope and addressed it to NAG, then fished a stamp from her purse.

Jessie and Asa walked down the lane to the road, put the check in the mailbox, and raised the little metal flag. They ambled back up the lane, hand in hand. It was a beautiful early autumn afternoon, and all the world about them was verging on change.