A Light in the Window (74 page)

Rodney wiped the chili off his hand. “It’s June, Esther. We always get tourists in June.”

She looked down at her jacket. “I hate linen. Would you look at this suit? It’s got more wrinkles than Carter has liver pills. I’m packin’ up and goin’ to Colorado as soon as this thing’s over.”

She stomped off to get a doughnut.

“I thought this was a festival,” said Mule Skinner, arriving fresh from a round of golf, “but it looks like a circus to me.”

“Big crowd,” said the rector.

“Next year, they better bring in barbecue and sweet-potato pie. Hot dogs won’t cut it.”

“We’ll get Percy to set up a booth.”

“When do the events begin, the pig kissin’ and all?”

“One o’clock, if there’s a soul left alive to watch,” said the rector.

“Mack Stroupe?”

The rector nodded, laughing. Two dogs streaked by them, chasing a squirrel. Rodney ran after somebody whose shopping bag had lost its bottom and was spilling a trail of tea towels and bran muffins bought at the Library Ladies booth.

“Are you on for the Scripture Dog act?” said Mule.

“That’s me,” sighed the rector. “It was that or push a blasted peanut ...”

“Esther Cunningham makes my army sergeant look like Mother Teresa.”

They looked up to see Hattie Cloer charging toward them with Darlene on a leash.

“Duck,” hissed Mule, but it was too late.

“Father,” said Hattie, “how far gone do you have to be to get last rites?”

“Pretty far,” said Mule, helping out with the conversation.

Darlene bared her teeth and growled at the rector.

“I was thinkin’ last night of askin’ Clyde to call you,” said Hattie. “I was layin’ there ‘til way up in th’ morning with somethin’ I thought was gas. Oh, law, I was so distended! But it had a worse pain to it than gas, you know. It was something really serious, I could just tell. So I said, ‘Clyde, honey, wake up and feel this.’ And he rolled over and felt of it and sat straight up and called the ambulance, but he dialed the wrong number and got Charlie’s Tavern on the highway. And by the time he was through talkin’, I was feelin’ better and got up and cooked a pot of string beans that just came in down at th’ store. And knowin’ how you like string beans, you might want to come over and get you a pound or two. They’ll freeze. You know I give a quarter off for clergy. But anyway, it did cause me to wonder about maybe needin’ you to come over ...”

“Call me anytime,” he told Hattie, who dragged Darlene away, still growling.

“I’d get an unlisted number if I was you,” said Mule.

At one o’clock sharp, the mayor stood on the front porch steps as the brass band played “God Bless America,” and everyone crossed their hearts.

The Rotary had loaned a small sea of folding chairs to the festival, which were neatly placed about the lawn in rows near the steps.

Miss Sadie, Louella, Roberto, Father Tim, Cynthia, Dooley, and Andrew Gregory occupied the front row.

The rector glanced anxiously at Miss Sadie. How would she react to seeing the statue of the man she had loved for so many years? She didn’t care for public display, to say the least.

The mayor thanked everyone for turning out, reminded them of the free lemonade, and launched into a prepared speech that was ghost-written, as far as he could tell, by Hessie Mayhew.

She thanked Miss Rose and Uncle Billy for their civic generosity in letting their home be overtaken by a museum, and everyone applauded.

Miss Rose stood and bowed, sending her mashed-flat silk peony into the grass.

Then the mayor went on at some length about Willard Porter, his deep roots in Mitford, his fondly remembered generosity to the Presbyterian church, his brilliant contributions to the pharmaceutical profession, and the noble architecture of the house, which, for nearly seventy years, had been the centerpiece of the village. His death in France, she said in closing, had been to the glory of God and America.

Ernestine Ivory stood by the statue, holding the tarpaulin.

Esther Cunningham signaled the band, which struck up at once.

Then she signaled Ernestine, who, blushing furiously, ripped the cover from the statue.

A gasp went up.

Silence ensued.

Then everyone stood and applauded and whistled and cheered. It was the first statue ever erected in Mitford, and public opinion was unanimous—it was a sight to behold.

Willard Porter stood looking toward the blue mountains that swelled beyond the village, his eyes fixed on freedom, his hand over his heart. Nobility was expressed in every feature of his handsome face, in every detail of his officer’s uniform. A bed of flowers sprung up at his feet.

“Oh, my,” said Miss Sadie, using her handkerchief.

Roberto nodded approvingly.

“Man!” said Dooley.

Some people were still clapping, as the band began to march around the statue.

He thought he had never seen Miss Rose look so wonderful—standing by Uncle Billy, saluting the statue of her brother, and keeping time to the music with her foot.

“Th’ deal,” announced the mayor from the steps, “is that anytime th’ father’s dog gets out of hand, all th’ father has to do is quote Scripture and his dog ...”

“Barnabas,” said the rector.

“Barnabas ... shapes up and lies down.”

The crowd laughed.

“I’m askin’ for fifty dollars for a demonstration,” she announced, peering around.

Silence. Birdsong.

“Not twenty-five, so don’t even think about it. Fifty! A small price to pay to see somethin’ you can’t even see on TV! And think what that fifty will do—help add yet another room to this fine museum, the likes of which you’ll not see across the whole length of the state ...”

A hand went up in the back row. “Thirry-five!”

“Get over it!” said Esther. “I’m lookin’ for fifty or we move on to th’ pig kissin’.”

“Fifty!” shouted a voice from the vicinity of the llamas.

“Do I hear fifty-five?”

Silence.

Esther signaled the band, which struck up a drumroll as the rector led Barnabas to the foot of the steps.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. How he had ever been talked into this was beyond all understanding.

“One thing you need to know,” said Esther. “We do not mean to poke fun at the Word of the good Lord.

“We intend to demonstrate to each and every member present what we should all do when we hear his Word ... which is to let it have its way with our hearts.”

“Amen!” somebody said.

J.C. sank to his knees in the grass and looked through the lens of his camera. Something interesting was bound to happen with this deal.

At that moment, Cynthia Coppersmith rose from her front-row seat, holding what appeared to be a large handbag. As she held it aloft for all to see, Violet’s white head emerged. Violet perched there, staring coolly at the crowd.

“That cat is in books at the library,” someone said.

Keeping a safe distance, Cynthia turned around and let Barnabas have a look. Violet peered down at him with stunning disdain.

Barnabas nearly toppled the rector as he lunged toward the offending handbag, which Cynthia handed off to Dooley.

His booming bark carried beyond the monument, all the way to Lew Boyd’s Esso, and the force of his indignation communicated to every expectant onlooker.

The rector spoke with his full pulpit voice. “ ‘For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh.’ ”

Barnabas hesitated. His ears stood straight up. He relaxed on the leash.

“ ‘... but by love serve one another.’ ”

The black dog sighed and sprawled on the grass.

“ ‘For all the law is fulfilled in one word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ ”

Barnabas didn’t move but raised his eyes and looked dolefully at the front row. Not knowing what else to do, the rector bowed. The crowd applauded heartily.

“A fine passage from Galatians five-thirteen and fourteen!” said the jolly new preacher from First Baptist.

“That was
worth
fifty,” said Mule Skinner, pleased to know the dog personally.

As Dooley hurried to take Violet back to her sunny window seat at home, Esther resumed her place on the steps and looked around.

“Ponder that in your hearts,” she said.

Somebody heard the pig squeal behind a column on the porch, which encouraged more applause.

Linder Hayes strolled to the foot of the steps and stretched to his full height of six feet, four and a half inches. His courtroom demeanor brought a hush over the assembly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, on this distinguished and momentous occasion, we will now open the bidding that will permit everyone here—with their own eyes—to see a unique and historic event, to see, in other words, the mayor of this fine village ... kiss ... a pig.”

They gasped. Esther Cunningham would kiss a pig? A great clamor ran through the booths and among the crowd. Coot Hendrick, maybe, but Esther Cunningham?

“Twenty-five dollars!” someone shouted.

Linder held up his hand for silence.

“Surely you jest,” he said in the deep baritone that he had honed to reach the hearts of a jury. “This penultimate event will not go for so crass a sum as twenty-five dollars. In fact, no amount of money could fully compensate the priceless act of sacrifice and civic responsibility that ...”

“Hurry up, dadgum it,” hissed Esther.

“The bidding, my friends, will begin at five hundred dollars.”

The stunned silence changed into an uproar.

Linder pulled at his chin and looked thoughtful. Esther broke out in a rash.

Someone standing under the elm tree shouted: “Five hundred!”

Linder held up his hand. “Do I hear five twenty-five?”

Silence.

“Going, going, gone for five hundred.”

“And dern lucky t’ get it, if you ask me,” said Percy, who stood under the elm in a shirt printed with chartreuse palm leaves and red monkeys.

“Will someone please bring down the pig?”

A great expectancy hung over the gathering. What kind of pig would it be? A sow? A shoat? What difference did it make?

Ray came down the steps with the pig in his arms. He held it while Esther kissed it.

The crowd cheered as J.C.’s flash went off.

“One more time!” said J.C. “Th’ pig moved!”

Esther did it again. More hollering and whistling.

Esther turned to the crowd, who, she knew, would deliver a strong Cunningham vote next election, and raised both arms in triumph.

“I’m about half shot,” said Winnie Ivey. “Up at four in th’ mornin’ to cook all these doughnuts, and here it is way up in the day, and all I’ve had is half a pimento cheese sandwich.”

“Only one more event to go,” he said, trying to locate Cynthia in the swirling crowd. “I’ll get you some lemonade.”