Out to Canaan (60 page)

The votes were running neck and neck. Mack or Esther would pull ahead in the counting, and then the other would catch up and move ahead.

As the stack of ballots slowly dwindled, the laughing and muttering, hooting and yelping died down.

Something had better happen here pretty quick, he thought, as the last three ballots were held up and counted.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” exclaimed the Board of Elections official, “according to the recount, which ya'll have witnessed here with your own eyes . . . it's a tie.”

A communal gasp resounded through the hall, followed by murmurs and shouts.

“What we do . . .” the elections official said, trying to speak over the hubbub. The hubbub escalated wildly.

He pounded the mayor's podium with the gavel. “According to th' by-laws, what we do in such a case is . . . we flip a coin.”

The rector leaned forward in his chair. Flip a coin? You determine the well-being of a whole town by flipping a coin?

“God help us,” said Esther Bolick.

He saw that Esther Cunningham had turned deathly pale. Where were the fiery splotches, the indomitable spirit? Come on, Esther . . .

He prayed the prayer that never fails.

“Ladies first,” said the elections official. “Heads . . . or tails?”

Breathless silence.

Esther Cunningham stood and peered into the crowd as if she were about to deliver the Gettysburg Address.

“
Heads!
” she said in a voice that thundered beyond the back row and bounced off the wall.

The elections official looked toward the door. “Mr. Stroupe?”

Mack Stroupe shrugged.

The official put his hand into his pocket and brought it out again, looking embarrassed. “Ah, anybody got a nickel or a dime?”

Someone rushed to give him a quarter, as the other two officials drew near, ready to verify the outcome.

He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and bowed slightly over the coin. Then, working his mouth silently as if uttering an official oath, he flipped it.

Around Town
—by Vanita Bentley

Last night, in the parish hole of Lord's Chapel, Bane and Blessing co-chairs Esther Bolick and Hessie Mayhe, were feted at a supper in their honor.

Along with nearly eighty voluntears, some from other Mitford churches, Bolck and Mayhew raised $22,000 and were praised for their “heroic endeavor” by Father Timothy Kavanagh.

“Hero simply means someone who models the ideal” said Rev. Kavanagh, “and these voluntears have done this for all of us.

“Also, a hero can be someone who saves lives in a valiant way and these voluntears have almost certainly done that, as well.”

The reverend said Bane proceeds have been used for food
and medical supplys to Zaiear, pure well water in several east African villages, and a ambulance for Landon, where two children died last yr for lack of medical ade.

“The Bane has always been a blessing to others,” he said. “But this year, thanks to the outstanding organizational skills of two women and their willingness to serve as unto the Lord, we may all celebrate a special triumph for His kingdom.”

Bolk and Mayew were presented with plaques and other voluntears were each given a bag of goodies by local merchants.

Mrs. Bvolk whose jaws were wired shut due an accident reported here previously got to request a special dinner of mashed potatoes and gravey to celebrate being able to eat real food again.

If time does, indeed, fly, it was the season when it became a Concorde jet, as far as the rector was concerned.

Following the annual All-Church Thanksgiving Feast, which, thankfully, was held this year at First Baptist, events went into overdrive.

Cynthia drove Dooley back to school on St. Andrew's Day, while the rector prepared the sermon for the first Sunday of Advent and began the serious business of trying to juggle the innumerable Advent activities, not the least of which was Lessons and Carols, to be performed this year on a grand scale with the addition of a visiting choir and an organist from Cambridge, England, all of whom would stay over in parish homes for five days and participate in the Advent Walk on December 15, after which everyone would come to the rectory for a light supper in front of the fire.

“Light supper, heavy dessert,” said Cynthia, paging frantically through their cookbooks.

He panted just thinking about it all, and so did his wife, who was making something for everyone on her list, and running behind.

“Whatever you do,” she told him at least three times, “don't look in
there.
” Upon saying this, she would point to the armoire, which he always stayed as far away from as possible.

Then, of course, there was the annual trek into the woods at the
north end of the Fernbank property, to hew down a Fraser fir with the Youth Group, which would become the Jesse tree in front of the altar, followed by a visit to the Sunday School to discuss the meaning of the ornaments the children would be making for the tree, and the courtesy call on the Christmas pageant rehearsal, which this year, much to the shock of the parents and the dismay of at least two teachers, would be done in modern dress, inspired by the recent success of the movie
Hamlet
in which Hamlet had worn blue jeans with what appeared to be a golf shirt.

“What will we do with all these
wings
?” wailed a teacher who had voted for traditional costumes, and lost.

He made himself scarce whenever the wrangling over the pageant issue erupted, and gave himself to the more rewarding annual task of negotiating with Jena Ivey for forty-five white poinsettias and the cartload of boxwood, balsam, fir, and gypsophila to be used on Christmas Eve for the greening of the church.

“Why can't you do the negotiating?” he once asked a member of the Altar Guild.

“Because she likes you better and you get a better price,” he was told. This notion of improved economics had engraved the mission in stone and caused it to belong, forever, to him.

He had to remember to order the Belgian chocolates for the nurses at the hospital, and meet with the organist and choir director to thrash through the music for the Christmas Eve services, and put in his two cents' worth about the furniture being ordered for the new upstairs Sunday School rooms, and call Dooley's schoolmate's parents to see if they'd bring him to Mitford on their way to Holding, and check to see if anybody was going to visit Homeless Hobbes and sing carols with him this year, and go through what Andrew Gregory didn't want at Fernbank and help Harley haul it to Pauline's tiny house behind the post office so it would look like a home in time for . . .

“We've done it again,” proclaimed his wife, shaking her head.

They gazed at each other, spent and pale.

“Next year,” she said, relieved, “it will be different.”

Next year, he would not be running around like a chicken with its head cut off, because next year, he would not have a parish.

Suddenly his eyes misted, just thinking about it.

Less than twelve months hence, his parishioners would be standing around him in the parish hall, singing “For he's a jolly good fellow,” and giving him money, and a plaque of some sort, and tins of mixed nuts.

After the wedding, Winnie and Thomas planned to move into her cottage by the creek, while Scott Murphy would move his wok and precious few other possessions into Winnie's present quarters, once the home of Olivia Harper's socialite mother.

“Musical chairs!” said Cynthia.

It was the season of good news and glad tidings, in every way. Joe Ivey was moving back to Mitford.

“Hallelujah!” Father Tim said.

Winnie looked pleased as punch. “He said people kept askin' if Elvis was really dead, and he just couldn't take it anymore. He'll barber in that little room behind th' Sweet Stuff kitchen.”

“Baking and barbering!” said the jubilant rector. “I like it!” A little off the sides and a fruit tart to go.

“Look!” said Jessie. “A baby in a box.”

She stood on tiptoes, holding her doll, and gazed into the crèche that had belonged to his grandmother.

He realized she didn't know about the Babe, and wondered how his life could be so sheltered that he should be surprised.

He glanced at his watch and picked her up and stood looking down upon the crèche with her. Standing there in the lamplit study, he told her about the Babe and why He came, as she sucked her thumb and patted his shoulder and listened intently.