Light From Heaven (29 page)

The cookies had vanished, as had the juice, when Rooter ran back to Agnes.

“I done it! What else can I say to ’im?”

“What else would you like to say?”

“I want t’ know how he makes all them things in ’is little house. Them bears an’ deer an’ all, an’ them bowls, I want t’ know how ’e makes them bowls. I don’t see how he done ’at.”

“Watch,” said Agnes.

She made a sign. “Can you do this?”

“Yeah.” He did it.

“That means
how.
Can you make this sign?”

“Yeah.”

“That means do. Now here’s the rest of your question:
this
?
How do this?
”

Rooter watched intently, duplicating the last sign.

“I done it right, didn’ I?”

“You did it perfectly! Here comes the hard part; let’s do them all in a row now. How ... do ... this?”

Father Tim looked on. This boy was quick.

“I done it ag’in!”

“Yes, you did. How amazing.”

“I’ll be et f’r a tater!” said Granny, marveling. Agnes brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead. “Let’s go over it once more.”

They went over it once more.

“Now, run find Clarence!”

Rooter started to race away, then turned back. “Don’t he talk none a’tall?”

“None at all.”

“How’d he learn to make them things?”

“God taught him.”

“I ain’t believin’ that. You cain’t see God.”

“God put the gift to carve wood in Clarence’s heart and mind and hands. Clarence touches the wood and knows things that most of us can’t know.”

Rooter sighed. “Now I done forgot what I learnt.”

“Look here.” She made the signs, and he mimicked them without fault.

“Hurry, now! Run!”

Rooter ran.

“Ain’t he a catbird?” said Granny.

They were pulling out of the church lot as Lloyd was getting into his pickup.

“What would you think,” he asked Cynthia, “about setting another plate for Easter dinner?”

“I would think it’s a wonderful idea.”

He leaned out the window of the Mustang and shouted. “Lloyd!”

“Yessir?”

“Do you like ham and corn pudding and hot rolls and green beans?”

With Lloyd following behind, he steered the Mustang down the gravel road toward the creek, still intoxicated by the scent of beeswax, old wood, lemon oil, lilies . . .

He wanted to remember the happiness of this day for a very long time.

“How’s it going back there, Sammy?” A quick glance in the rearview mirror . . .

Just as Sammy had maintained his distance from the parishioners, he was giving wide berth to his companion on the backseat.

After Lloyd had gone home to the ridge, he sat with Cynthia in the library and totted the numbers.

Not counting his good dog, Holy Trinity had expanded from seven parishioners to fourteen.

Though numbers weren’t everything, he was mighty impressed with their rate of growth, which was a whopping 100 percent.

“One hundred percent!” he announced to his wife. “In the space of a single week, mind you.”

“Let the megachurches top that,” she said.

Willie Mullis was living up to something Father Tim’s grandmother used to say of the overharried—he looked like he was sent for and couldn’t go.

“Triplets.”

“Triplets?
”

“Two ewes an’ a ram. All hale.”

“Wonderful! Thanks for the report.” It was nine o’clock at night, for Pete’s sake, he didn’t know if he could handle another lifetime event today. “Want to step in for some hot chocolate? It’s chilly this evening.”

Willie frowned. Why would anybody want to waste time drinking hot chocolate when they could come to the barn and witness something that didn’t happen every day of the week? Twins were pretty common. But triplets? He shook his head, disgusted with town people in general.

As Willie turned to leave, Father Tim felt Violet wrapping herself around his ankles. Suddenly, the proverbial lightbulb switched on. He looked at his wife; she looked at him.

“Violet and the triplets!” they whooped.

“I’ll grab my sketchbook!”

“Get Sammy while you’re at it!” he said. “I’ll get a flashlight. Hey, Willie! Wait up, we’re coming!”

Before he could round up the flashlight and don his boots, his wife had commandeered Sammy, raced to the coatrack by the door, found her wool socks and pulled them on, shoved her feet into her boots, stuffed her pajama bottoms therein, drawn her barn jacket on over her chenille robe, crammed a knit hat on her head, and was out the door with Sammy and Barnabas at her heels, the screen door slapping behind.

Lambs on long, wobbly legs.

If there was ever a sight to restore one’s hope, it was a lamb.

His wife was sitting in the straw of the triplets’ lambing pen, sketching her brains out while two of the newborns suckled with good appetite. Sammy looked on from outside the pen, awed.

“This, I presume,” he said to Cynthia, “knocks out March.”

“March, and possibly even April,” she said.

Willie came in with a bottle. “I had t’ pull that ’un yonder. ’E’s not takin’ dinner from ’is mama, an’ I got t’ go look about th’ rest of th’ lot.” Willie gave Father Tim a meaningful look.

“You want me to ... umm ...”

“Yessir.”

The vicar took the bottle and sat in the straw beside Barnabas. “Hand him over here, get me started. I’m new at this.”

Willie picked up the lamb and forked it over; it was wet and sticky from the birth sac, and its iodine-treated umbilical cord was still bloody.

With a little coaxing, the lamb found the nipple of the bottle and nursed with surprising energy.

Father Tim leaned back against the boards of the lambing pen, grinning. His new barn jacket had at last been broken in.

“Close up the house,” said Hal. “You don’t need the aggravation of a chimney being rebuilt under your noses. Willie can look after things.”

“No, no, we’d like to stay on. I confess we’ve gotten pretty comfortable here and we’re looking forward to spending the summer with Dooley. We hope we have years yet to be at home in Mitford.”

“Whatever suits you, old friend. Glad to hear Sammy showed up; that’s four out of five, thanks be to God!”

As the usual static came on the line, Father Tim hung up, relieved.

Somehow, he and Cynthia had gotten rooted into Meadowgate like turnips; yanking it all up and moving back to Wisteria Lane would be a job of no mean proportion. Besides, he wanted to watch the lambs grow up, and eat okra and tomatoes from the alluvial soil of a valley garden.

“Okra!” he said aloud, rhapsodic.

His wife stopped squinting at her sketchbook and squinted at him. “
Okra?”

“Fried, whenever possible.”

“Certainly not stewed!” she said, meaning it.

During a light spring rain on Wednesday, the UPS driver screeched into the driveway and, unable to summon anyone to the backdoor of the farmhouse, used a dolly to transport twenty boxes to the rear steps. Seeing no way around the onerous task of off-loading them onto the porch, he sighed deeply and went to work.