Saints Among Us (6 page)

Ethel opened the door the moment Louise stepped onto the small front porch. “Good morning, Louise. Please come in. I’m happy to entertain any ideas for the crafts fair.”

“I don’t really have ideas,” Louise hastened to explain. “I’ve been thinking more along the lines of all the logistical things that have to happen in order for this to succeed. Aunt Ethel, are you still sure you want to tackle this in such a short span of time?”

“Of course I’m sure. Sit down, dear, and tell me what you’re concerned about. What can I get you to drink? Would you like a little snack?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I just finished breakfast. But thank you for the offer.” Louise took a seat on the couch, laying her jacket over the back of the nearby rocking chair. So much for trying to talk her aunt into waiting until next year. Louise had heard that tone of voice before, the one that meant Ethel had no intention of backing down. She took a deep breath. “Well. Let’s talk money first. What is your budget for food and planning?”

“But I’m on the board,” Ethel said blithely. “I know what the church’s budget can handle.”

“All right.” Louise could see that she was getting nowhere fast. “What do you plan to do about advertising?”

“Advertising?” Ethel made it sound like a word from a foreign tongue.

“You might try to get the newspapers to do an article for you since it’s the first time you’re trying it and it’s a charitable event. That would save actually placing an ad, which would add to your expenses.”

“A newspaper article.” Ethel nodded. “That’s a very good idea, Louise. Is there anything else you can think of?”

Louise was just scratching the surface. “You’ll need boxes to be decorated and set in front of each raffle item, and you’ll have to make a sign advertising the raffle. You’ll also have to make a sign for the baked-goods table, so people understand all the proceeds from that will go to Helping Hands and not into some stranger’s pocket. And you’ll need a price list for the baked goods.”

“I can have someone make one.”

Louise nodded her head slowly, telling herself all she had to do was plant the seed. “All right. How about change?”

“Change? What would we want to change at this point?”

“No, Aunt Ethel, not
changing things
. I mean money. You need change in case your customers hand you large bills.”

“All right, Louise. You’ve made your point.” Ethel rose and walked into her small kitchen, returning a moment later with a folder and a pen. She made a production out of opening the folder and extracting a notepad, then crossed one leg over the other and said, “I’m taking notes, so I can write down anything I haven’t already considered.”

“Well, if you plan to sell drinks and sandwiches, you’ll want to ask around to see who can give you the best prices. Some of the ladies from the social circle might make soup if you asked them to, but you need some kind of sandwiches.”

Ethel made a dismissive motion. “I’ll get a tray of turkey and ham.”

Oh dear. Louise’s anxiety level reached a new high. “I don’t think you want to purchase an arranged tray, Aunt Ethel. That’s costly. See if you can get a bargain from a butcher or deli. You might even get a better price on the meat over in Potterston,” she mused.

Ethel was scribbling madly, but she paused at that suggestion and looked up. “I couldn’t do that to the Acorn Hill merchants,” she said in a shocked tone. “I like to keep my shopping in the community. If everyone goes somewhere else to shop, small businesses like those in our little town won’t be able to stay open.”

“I agree, but this isn’t your personal shopping you’re talking about. You want to spend as little as possible so that when all the proceeds are matched against the initial outlay, you will make a nice profit to donate to Helping Hands.”

“Louise, I am not willing to ignore our local shops just for the sake of a few dollars.” Ethel’s tone was quite definite.

Louise took a deep breath. “Perhaps you are right. Let’s move on. We need to figure out how many volunteers will be needed in each area and how long their shifts should be.”

“Oh, I thought I’d have sign-up sheets at our next Seniors Social Circle meeting.”

Louise sighed. She so wanted the seniors’ group to make a success of this. If it didn’t go well, Ethel might never get a second chance. Louise took another deep, fortifying breath and a long moment to compose herself.
Lord
, she thought,
give me patience
.
Aunt Ethel’s heart is in the right place
. “I think you’d do better with more structure,” she said.

“Oh, I’m sure the ladies in the Seniors Social Circle will be willing to work the whole day, just like I am. After all, this is for a good cause.”

Momentarily speechless, Louise gazed at her aunt. Searching for tact, she said, “That might be expecting a bit much. After all, you are in far better health than many of your friends.”

“Yes, I suppose I am.” Ethel preened, pleased by Louise’s statement. Then she frowned. “But we’ll have to work to find enough people to fill all those hours. I wonder if Alice’s ANGELs are old enough to be reliable assistants.”

“Perhaps with the food and the raffle, but we hardly could ask them to oversee the vendors.”

“Oh well.” Ethel shrugged. “The good Lord will help us make this happen.”

It sounded very much like what Alice had described her aunt saying at the board meeting. “I hope so.” Louise’s comment was heartfelt.

“Thank you for your suggestions, Louise.” Ethel set down her pencil. “I’ll add them to my list of ideas to consider.”

Louise raised one eyebrow. Ideas? As far as she was concerned, the things she had said were imperatives.

“There’s more,” she said grimly, determined to give her aunt all the information she could. “Have you thought about how to measure and lay out the space for the booths? You really should measure the Assembly Room.”

“Oh, I’ve decided not to use the Assembly Room,” Ethel said breezily. “I think that we’ll set up several large tents outside. We can make it a real community event, with face painting and party hats for the children, and hot apple cider’”

“Outside? It is going to be
cold
in December!”

“I beg your pardon?” Ethel said, raising her eyebrows.

“I’m sorry,” Louise began. “I don’t mean to be rude. But I do not think you realize the scope’”

“You can’t stand not to be in charge, Louise,” Ethel said. “I know you’d love to take over this crafts fair and show everyone how much better you could organize it.”

The attack was so unfair that Louise did not even know how to respond. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. For the first time in quite a while, she felt the sting of tears behind her eyelids.

“I want you to succeed and I’ve been worrying myself sleepless,” she said calmly. She said another prayer for patience before continuing. “I thought that I could give you some guidance since I have experience with this kind of endeavor. I was wrong. I apologize.” She turned and began striding for the door, grabbing her coat without a pause and sailing out onto the porch.

“Louise?” She heard a tremble in her elderly aunt’s voice, but Louise didn’t trust herself to speak kindly, so she kept going down the steps and across the flagstones.

Chapter Six

T
 he walk back to the inn from the carriage house took less than a minute, not nearly long enough to calm down. Louise was still seething when she stepped through the kitchen door.

Jane, at the sink, took one look at her face and picked up a platter full of brownies. She held them out to Louise. “Oh dear. It didn’t go well?”

Louise did not respond. It was an indication to Jane of just how upset her eldest sister was. Louise took a brownie, then sank down into a chair at the table, miming banging her head against the wood.

Alice was still at the table, gluing instructions for the Christmas Cocoa mix onto the holly leaves she had cut out. She rose and stood behind Louise. “Take a deep breath.” She placed a hand on her sister’s back and rubbed small circles. “Try to relax a bit. Then you can tell us all about it. Sharing a burden can lighten your load.”

In this case, Louise wasn’t so sure about that. But she drew a napkin out of the holder near the center of the table and laid down her brownie. “Thank you,” she said, looking up as Jane set a glass of cold cider in front of her.

“I would have made tea, but you already have steam coming out of your ears.”

“Very funny.” But Louise was beginning to feel a little calmer.

Alice pulled out a chair at the end of the table and sat, picking up the cider Jane also had poured for her. “So how bad was it?”

Louise just shook her head. “I feel as if I’ve just returned from talking to a wall. Aunt Ethel seemed determined to ignore every sensible suggestion I made.”

“Did she say she didn’t like your ideas?”

“She never said that.” In all fairness, Louise could not say that Ethel had disliked the things she’d said. “But she resisted me every step of the way. And just as I finished, she got angry and accused me of wanting to take over her position as chairman.” She huffed. “As if.”

Jane was agog. “Are you kidding? She didn’t.”

“She most certainly did.” Louise was getting revved up just thinking about it again.

Alice reached over and patted Louise’s arm. “Oh, Louise, I’m so sorry. But you know how she is. It’s very important to her to feel needed and necessary. Her feelings get hurt over the tiniest imagined slight, and she can make a mountain
range
out of a little
ant
hill.”

Louise had to laugh at Alice’s twist on the cliché.

“No wonder she and Florence are such a volatile mix,” Jane commented. “They both need to be handled with kid gloves.”

“What, exactly, did she say?” Alice asked.

Louise told them. “I felt as if I was about five years old again, being fussed at. I was intimidated by Aunt Ethel when I was little. She seemed so stern.”

“Louise, I’m sorry,” Jane said, dropping a dishtowel on the table as she flopped into a seat. “This is my fault.”

“Your fault? What do you mean?”

“I’m the one who suggested you offer your pearls of wisdom to Aunt Ethel. I know how she is. I should have thought about how she would react.”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Alice said firmly. “Families have misunderstandings and disagreements. It’s part of the package. This, too, shall pass.”

Louise knew her sister was right. But Ethel’s accusations still stung. She knew she would have to talk with her aunt again. But it would be a few days before she could imagine initiating another conversation.

“Grace Chapel Inn, Alice speaking. May I help you?”

“Hello, Alice, it’s June. Again.” It was Friday afternoon, and the two women had talked at least a dozen times over the past two days as donations had begun to roll in at a surprising rate.

Alice laughed. “It’s a good thing the phone company doesn’t charge us by the call, or you and I would be in the poorhouse.”

“I know,” agreed June. “But I forgot to ask you if you have a large cooler we could take.”

“June,” said Alice patiently, “I live with a chef. Of course I have a cooler. If you’d like to come over, you can choose the size you want.”

“I can’t come over right now. A neighbor called. She has six cases of canned dog food she wants to donate.”

“Six
cases
?”

“That’s what I said. Apparently she bought in bulk because it was cheaper, but her dog is allergic to beef and can’t eat it.”

“How on earth are we going to fit all these donations into that SUV you borrowed? I know it’s big, but still…” June had finagled the loan of an enormous used Chevrolet SUV from Moe Burdock, a dealer in Potterston from whom she had bought a number of previous vehicles. She had driven trucks with horse trailers before, so the prospect of driving the SUV didn’t bother her. The auto’s size made Alice considerably more nervous, but she figured she could handle it on the highway as long as she didn’t have to try to parallel park.

“I borrowed a turtle from my son. That should help.”

“A turtle? Do you mean one of those luggage carriers that fit on the top of a vehicle?”

“Right. It’s the largest size they make, and it will hold a lot.”

“Whew! For a moment there I took you literally.”

June laughed. “We’d be taking animals in the wrong direction, then, wouldn’t we? Also, Moe gave me a flatbed that fits into the trailer hitch on the truck. It’s like a big tray, and anything we stow there would have to be boxed and waterproof because it wouldn’t be protected from the elements, but it would provide some more space.”

“By the time we’re done loading, we’re going to be getting five miles to the gallon.” Consumption of natural resources was something Alice tried hard to be conscious of. Her blue Toyota got more than twenty miles to the gallon around town.

“Not quite that bad, but close.”

“I’m glad you called,” Alice told her traveling companion. “I was about to call you. The mail was delivered a few minutes ago, and you will never believe what arrived.”

“More money?”

“Yes. Checks and cash totaling four hundred dollars.”

“Gracious. People certainly have been generous. I admit that when we did the article, I wasn’t expecting these kinds of results.”

“Add that to what we’ve already received, and we have more than a thousand dollars. It makes me feel very humble that people trust us to use their money well.”

“I’ll have to write you a check for the money that I’ve been given. I deposited it into my checking account because all the checks were made out to me and it made me nervous having them in the house.”

“I’ll deposit this too,” Alice said. “Then I can set aside some money for our expenses and write the director of the camp one large check when we arrive. I don’t even know who to make it out to yet.”

“Moe’s sales manager gave me a donation to be used for gas for our trip,” June told her. “It’s an Exxon card good for one hundred dollars. That means more of Mrs. Daughtry’s donation can go straight to Camp Compassion.”

“God certainly has moved people’s hearts to respond to this.”

“I know. Now why don’t we go over what we need to take one more time?”

June was the most organized trip planner Alice ever had met. The two women glanced over their notes yet another time. Alice pulled out a sheet of paper. “I also have a list of all the veterinary supplies that have been donated. They’re going to fill at least five boxes, I believe.”

“This sounds impressive,” June said as Alice proceeded to read down the column.

“I know. But I’m afraid it’s going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the needs that exist. I have been reading the daily Internet postings from some of the rescue groups that are getting reports out. There must be thousands of animals down there.”

“I know.” June’s voice was gentle. “But we will have to focus on helping as many as we can.”

Alice felt a renewed sense of purpose. “We leave in only two days. Oh, I can’t wait!”

“I can’t either.” June’s voice was filled with the same excitement Alice felt. “This is going to be such an adventure!”

After she and June said good-bye, Alice had one more telephone call to make. Britt Nilsen was the mother of one of Alice’s former ANGELs. She had helped with the girls’ projects in the past, and Alice was hoping she would agree to oversee the bracelet-making in Alice’s absence.

Britt and her daughter Ingrid both were at home, and Britt said she would be happy to help with the bracelets. Ingrid overheard the conversation and Alice could hear her high voice chattering away in the background.

“Ingrid wants me to tell you that she has a book with a number of different designs in it. She and her friends do this all the time, you know.”

Alice smiled. “I know.” She had seen Ingrid wearing rope bracelets many times. It was one of the reasons she had volunteered to have her ANGELs help make the crafts.

“I have a huge bag of embroidery floss that I picked up at a yard sale in September,” Britt said. “How about if I donate that to the crafts fair, and we’ll use it to make the bracelets?”

Alice was touched by yet another example of generosity. She had a strong feeling that the Lord was moving people to support both her trip and Ethel’s crafts fair. “Thank you, Britt. That’s a wonderful idea.”
And thank You, God, for helping us to make these ministries happen
.

Louise had invited Karin Lindars to come to the inn for their first Santa Lucia planning session on Saturday. The doorbell rang precisely at two. Louise took a moment to turn her pearls so that the clasp was behind her neck where it belonged. Then she walked to the front door and pulled it open.

“Hello.” She smiled warmly at the willowy woman who stood on the welcome mat. She offered her hand. “I’m Louise Smith. Please come in.”

“I’m Karin Lindars.” Tentatively, Karin shook Louise’s hand. She was a tall, blue-eyed blonde with porcelain skin. “I’ve seen you at church with your sisters. And I want to thank you so much for volunteering to plan this celebration.”

Although she hadn’t exactly volunteered, Louise graciously said, “You’re welcome. It sounds quite interesting.”

She took the younger woman’s coat and hung it on the antique beech coat tree that her father had purchased many years before. Then she led her guest into the dining room. “This is a bit informal, but I thought we might like to sit at the table to take notes. Please have a seat.”

Karin pulled out a chair as she looked around at the lovely ivory-and-green room, moving a gentle hand over the gleaming mahogany table. “This is a lovely room. And oh, Swedish mints!” She pointed at the dish of white, pink and green mints that Jane always kept on the dining table.

Louise chuckled. “Believe it or not, I didn’t plan that. The care and feeding of our guests is my sister Jane’s bailiwick. She keeps those dishes filled on a regular basis.” She pulled out a chair and sat at the end of the table at a right angle to Karin, pulling toward her the notepad that she had laid out earlier. “So. Where shall we begin?”

“I’m not really sure.” Karin looked distressed, and her pretty blue eyes showed concern. “Food? Music? Oh, it just overwhelms me.”

“Now, now,” said Louise in a parody of her own no-nonsense teacher voice. “There will be no overwhelming here today. It simply isn’t allowed.”

Karin smiled, as Louise had intended. “Do you have an idea where to start?” she asked hopefully.

Louise hitched her chair forward. “First, why don’t we list the major elements of the event?” She wrote a Roman numeral one on her notepad. “Music. I always think of that first since I am a music teacher by profession. And food. We’ll have some kind of light refreshments after the service, I imagine. What else?”

“The service itself?”

Louise wrote it down. “And the children will need costumes, I presume.”

“Yes. How many rehearsals shall we have?”

Louise consulted a calendar lying nearby. “I thought three and a dress rehearsal the day before. Will that be enough? All we really need to do is teach the music and select children for any readings.”

“That’s exactly how we did it in Minnesota.” Karin pronounced the name of the state like a true native: Min-ne-SO-da, although it was lightly overlaid with the Swedish accent that flavored her speech. Louise thought it was charming.

“Did your parents emigrate from Sweden?” she asked.