Shepherds Abiding Read online

  “I must tell you, Earlene, I’m not much on being surprised, but my wife is!”

  New arrivals pushed through the door, driving early arrivals to the rear.

  “Did I hear you’re givin’ your boy a rototiller?” Bob Hartley asked his boothmate.

  “That’s right.”

  “He’s forty-two an’ workin’ a steady job. Why can’t he buy ’is own rototiller?”

  “We like to be nice to Harry; he’ll choose our nursin’ home.”

  Mitford’s former mayor had the coffeepot up and running and was pouring and serving as if she were campaigning for office. “Percy, you ol’ coot, where’m I supposed to get a decent bowl of grits for breakfast?”

  “Beats me,” said Percy. “An’ don’t count on gettin’ grits in Wesley, they’re educated over there at th’ college an’ don’t eat grits.”

  People were clearly happy to see their former mayor back in the thick of things, especially as their current mayor had been called to a social event at the governor’s mansion.

  “Congratulations, you dog!” Omer Cunningham, aviator, bon vivant, and in-law of former mayor Esther Cunningham, waded through the crowd, his big teeth gleaming like a piano keyboard. “Where are you an’ Velma headed off to?” Omer gave a Percy a slap on the back that nearly knocked him into the drink box.

  “After gettin’ up at four o’clock every mornin’ for a hundred years, I’m headed off t’ lay down an’ sleep ’til Groundhog Day. Velma, she’s headed off to th’ pet shelter for a dadblame cat.”

  “Don’t get a cat, get a dog!” someone urged.

  “Don’t get a dog, get a monkey!”

  “Don’t get nothin’,” counseled the fire chief. “Animals strap you down—get somethin’ with four legs an’ you’ll never see th’ cherry blossoms, trust me.”

  Percy eyed the room—the booths and stools had filled up, and there was standing room only. Where were these turkeys when business had gone south a couple of times last summer?

  “Speech! Speech!” someone hollered from the rear.

  “Hold it!” J. C. Hogan blew in the front door, ushering a blast of arctic air into the assembly. “Make way for the press!”

  “Oh, law!” whispered Minnie Lomax, who had closed the Irish Woolen Shop for this event. “It’s J. C. Hogan—he wants to be th’ bride at every weddin’ and th’ corpse at every funeral.”

  A blinding flash went off, then another, and another.

  “Stand over there with Velma,” ordered the editor. “Velma, look here an’ give me a big grin! I know it’s hard for you to grin at me, but force yourself, there you go, Betty Grable lives. Okay, let’s have a shot of Percy at th’ grill. Hey, Mule, move your big rear out of this shot an’ let Percy flip somethin’ on the grill. . . .”

  “His last flip!” said Coot Hendrick.

  Lois Holshouser wrinkled her nose. “Who made this cake? Esther Bolick didn’t have anything to do with this cake, I can tell you that right now.”

  “Store-bought,” said Winnie Ivey Kendall, who was not having any.

  “Whose hat is this?” inquired Avis Packard. “Somebody handed me this hat. Is this your hat?”

  “You’re supposed to put somethin’ in it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Money. For th’ cherry blossoms.”

  “What cherry blossoms?”

  Faye Tuttle announced a relative’s sad news to Esther Cunningham. “Multiple dystrophy,” said Faye, shaking her head.

  J.C. mopped his brow with a paper napkin and handed off his Nikon to Lew Boyd. “Here you go, buddyroe, you won that big photo contest, crank off a shot of th’ Turkey Club with Percy an’ Velma. Come on, Mule, come on, Father, get over here. That’s it, look right through there and push th’ button. . . .”

  Flash. Flash.

  “Speech! Speech!”

  Hand clapping, foot stomping. A spoon ringing against a coffee mug.

  “I’ve made plenty of speeches th’ last forty-four years,” said Percy, “an’ you’ve done forgot everything I said.

  “So I ain’t makin’ a speech t’day except to say . . .”

  In all his years as a regular, Father Tim had never seen Percy Mosely choke up. In case it was catching, he grabbed his handkerchief from his jacket pocket.

  “ . . . except to say . . .”

  “What’d he say?” asked someone in the rear.

  “ . . . tosay. . .”

  “Looks like he can’t say it.”

  It was catching, all right. Father Tim peered around and saw several people wiping their eyes. Velma pushed forward from the crowd. “What he’s tryin’ to say is, thanks for th’ memories.”

  “Right!” said Percy, blowing his nose.

  Applause. Whistles.

  “Great speech!” said Coot.

  “You mustn’t miss your nap,” Cynthia reminded him.

  They were slurping her Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup to a fare-thee-well. He could eat a potful of this stuff.

  “I’ll lie on the sofa when we finish the tree, and look at the lights. I’m sure I’ll nod off.”

  “I think you should nap for at least an hour. But do you really want to lie on that sofa? Ugh! It’s so Victorian, you can’t possibly be comfortable.”

  “I’ll get a pillow from the bed.”

  “I’ll bring you one, and a blanket, too.”

  “Thanks. We’ve both been too blasted busy.” Slurp. It was hard not to slurp soup. “But there’s light at the end of the tunnel, my love!”

  “Did you get through with you-know-what?”

  “I did, by the skin of my teeth. And how about your you-know-what? The odor seeping from your workroom smells terrible. What’s the deal?”

  She laughed. “You’ll see!” Leaning her head to one side, she nailed him with her cornflower-blue eyes. “You know what I keep thinking about?”

  “That you can think at all these days is a marvel to me.”

  “Our trip to Ireland.”

  “Ah.”

  “We are going?”

  “God willing, we are going!”

  She beamed. “So is everything in order for the service tonight?”

  “It is. I just need to step down to church around five o’clock and see how the greening party is coming along.” He pushed his chair back and rose from the table. “Killer soup, my dear!”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Absolutely. At midnight, make sure you’re in the front pew where you usually sit when I celebrate.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.” He leaned down and took her chin in his hand and kissed her, lingering. “I like to see your eyelashes go up and down and the little stars come out of you.”

  It was a beautiful tree.

  Over the years, he’d had white pine, cedar, blue spruce, and Fraser fir. Fraser fir was his favorite, by far, though he harbored a deep affection for cedar.

  Neither he nor Cynthia had any special ornament collections, just the motley assortment that had come their way and escaped being smashed during their collective moves. But look at it! It was glorious, the best in years, and the colored lights were perfection; he was a sucker for colored lights.

  The day had begun upside down, but God in His mercy had righted it, and he was a happy man. He lay back on the pillow, which was faintly scented with wisteria, pulled the blanket over him, and listened to his dog snoring under the wing chair. The smell in the room! That raw, green, living scent that the overcivilized got to relish only once a year. . . .

  Closing his eyes, he inhaled the fragrance as if starved.

  “Over yonder by th’ fence post—how ’bout that ’un?”

  “It’s too bent on top. The star might fall off.”

  “How ’bout this ’un right here? We ’bout t’ walk right into this ’un.”

  The smell of woods and winter pasture, the crunch of hoarfrost under their feet, the stinging cold on their faces, the feel of the sled rope in his han
d, and Peggy with her head wrapped in a red kerchief . . .

  “I like that one,” he said, pointing.

  “Yo’ mama say don’t point.”

  “How’m I supposed to show you where it’s at?”

  “Don’t say ‘where it’s at,’ say ‘where it is.’ Talk to me ’bout how to reco’nize it.”

  “See the one with the wide branches at the bottom and the broom sage growing around it? Over by that ol’ stump?”

  “Oh, law, child, that cedar tree take two strong men t’ chop down—we jus’ a bony woman an’ a baby boy.”

  “I’m not a baby.” He stomped his foot to drive this truth home. Would she never stop calling him that?

  “Oh, you right, I forgot you ain’t a baby, an’ don’t stomp yo’ foot at me, little man. You hear what I say?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’s better. Pick yo’self another tree.”

  “But that’s the best one of any. Besides, Mama likes a big tree.”

  “You right. She do.”

  “It would make her smile.” That should do the trick; Peggy wanted as much as he did to make his mother smile.

  Peggy shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted at the tree.

  He pulled on Peggy’s skirt. “Will Mama get well?” He’d been afraid to ask, afraid of the answer.

  “She gettin’ well ever’ minute we stand here talkin’. Sure as you’re born, she goin’ to get well.”

  Peggy laid her hand on his shoulder; he could tell by the way she touched him that she was telling the truth.

  “We’ll get Rufe t’ chop it, then. I’ll see can I find ’im.”

  He looked up at the tall, slender woman whom he knew to be capable of anything. “We could prob’bly do it ourselves, Peggy . . . just you an’ me.”

  “You know what you is?”

  “What?” He was relieved that she didn’t look angry with him.

  “Th’ mos’ tryin’est little weasel I ever seen.”

  Peggy stumped ahead with the axe in her hand. Her dress and apron were the same color as the winter gold of the broomstraw, her kerchief a slash of crimson against the gray and leafless trees.

  “Pick up yo’ feet, then, let’s see can we do this thing! Lord Jesus, you got t’ help us, that ol’ tree be a hun’erd foot tall!”

  “Tall as a mountain!” he shouted into the stinging cold.

  “High as th’ sky!” whooped Peggy.

  They had dragged the huge tree home on the sled, its greenness dark and intense in its passage through the winter woods. When Rufe made a stand for it and stood it in the parlor, he and Peggy were dismayed to see that it wasn’t as high as the sky, after all; it reached only halfway up the parlor wall.

  Days later, he still smelled the sharply resonant odor of the resin that smeared his hands and clothes; the scent was there even after his bath in the washtub on the night they trimmed the tree.

  “Look at that boy eat fried chicken!” said Reverend Simon at their small Christmas Eve dinner. “You’re making a proper Baptist out of him, Madelaine!”

  His mother smiled. But his father did not.

  When he came downstairs on Christmas morning, the tree was there, shining with colored bulbs and festooned with ornaments and tinsel. His father was wearing a smoking jacket, though he never smoked, and there were the presents waiting to be opened, and something hidden behind the davenport. . . .

  When he placed the Babe in the manger, he saw what he’d desperately hoped for—the light returning to his mother’s eyes, the light that shone like the star on top of the great and benevolent cedar.

  “Merry Christmas!” he and his parents chorused in unison.

  He raced at once to the sideboard and brought the shepherds to the manger, displacing a cow and a donkey to give them a better view, while his father fetched from the bookcase the men who had journeyed so long to the star.

  After the long month of waiting, the scene was complete.

  Certainly he hadn’t known it then, but the blue bicycle that he discovered behind the davenport had something of the wonder of the Child in it—it was yet another miraculous gift, mimicking the far greater Gift. He’d been beside himself with joy.

  There was no way he could tell Tommy, of course—for what if Tommy hadn’t gotten a bike, or anything at all?

  “What is it, Timothy?” His mother sat in the blue-painted kitchen chair by the window, shucking oysters with Peggy.

  “Tommy maybe didn’t get nothing,” he said, forlorn in spite of himself.

  “Anything.” His mother’s voice was tender; she reached for him and drew him close.

  “Look here!” Peggy suddenly stood and peered through the window. “Look who’s comin’ up th’ road!”

  In the bright afternoon light of Christmas Day, Tommy Noles wobbled up their drive on two wheels of his own.

  Tommy had a bike, and the light had returned to his mother’s eyes.

  Until he married Cynthia, it had been the single happiest Christmas of his life.

  Between his nap and the trek to the church, more than an inch of snow had fallen, which would undoubtedly inspire the merry greening party in their labors.

  But, alas, he found no greening party, merry or otherwise. He found instead that he must unlock the double front doors and let himself in. As the key turned, the bells began to toll.

  Bong . . .

  The moment he stepped into the narthex, he smelled the perfume of fresh pine and cedar, and the beeswax newly rubbed into the venerable oak pews.

  Bong . . .

  And there was the nave, lovely in the shadowed winter twilight, every nuance familiar to him, a kind of home; he bowed before the cross above the altar, his heart full. . . .

  Bong . . .

  The greening of the church was among his favorite traditions in Christendom; someone had worked hard and long this day!

  Bong . . .

  Every windowsill contained fresh greenery, and a candle to be lighted before the service . . . the nave would be packed with congregants, eager to hear once more the old love story. . . .

  Bong . . .

  Families would come together from near and far, to savor this holy hour. And afterward, they would exclaim the glad greeting that, in earlier times, was never spoken until Advent ended and Christmas morning had at last arrived.

  Call him a stick-in-the-mud, a dinosaur, a fusty throwback, but indeed, jumping into the fray the day after Halloween was akin to hitting, and holding, high C for a couple of months, while a bit of patience saved Christmas for Christmas morning and kept the holy days fresh and new.

  He knelt and closed his eyes, inexpressibly thankful for quietude, and found his heart moved toward Dooley and Poo, Jessie and Sammy . . . indeed, toward all families who would be drawn together during this time.

  “Almighty God, our heavenly Father . . .” He prayed aloud the words he had learned as a young curate, and never forgotten. “ . . . who settest the solitary in families: We commend to thy continual care the homes in which thy people dwell. Put far from them, we beseech thee, every root of bitterness, the desire of vainglory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit together in constant affection those who, in holy wedlock, have been made one flesh. Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents; and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned one to another; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

  In the deep and expectant silence, he heard only the sound of his own breathing.

  “Amen,” he whispered.

  The snow had stopped entirely; the snowplow operators could stay snug in their beds tonight, after all.

  He unlocked the door of the Oxford and felt for the fourth switch on the plate. Deep within the large building, used originally as an in-town horse stable, the light came on in the back room and spilled through the open door.

  His heart beat up—this was
the day, the moment he’d worked and waited for. He moved quickly along the darkened aisle between the tables and chairs, the chests and sideboards.

  Fred, Lord bless him, had offered to put the figures in boxes, enabling him to carry more pieces at once. That good fellow was his Christmas angel, if ever there was one.

  He caught his breath sharply, and stood motionless at the door.

  There were the boxes . . .

  And there, on the table in the center of the room, was the stable, sheltering the Holy Family.

  “Hark! The herald angels sing,

  ‘Glory to the newborn King;

  Peace on earth and mercy mild,

  God and sinners reconciled!’ ”

  “They’re gearing up!” said Mamy Phillips to her cat, Popeye.

  Mamy, who lived in a small house next to Lord’s Chapel, couldn’t imagine why people would want to go to church in the middle of the night. She did confess however, that as she became increasingly wakeful in her old age, the midnight service was something to look forward to, as, however faint it might be, she could hear the singing.

  “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!

  Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

  Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;

  The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

  For Christ is born of Mary, and gathered all above,

  While mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of wondering love.

  O morning stars together, proclaim the holy birth,

  And praises sing to God the King,

  And peace to men on earth.”

  Mamy pulled the top window sash down an inch or two. Then, by cupping her hand around her right ear and holding her breath for long periods, she was able to catch every word that floated out upon the frozen air.

  “While shepherds watched their flocks by night,