Back Roads to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #6): A Novel (17 page)

Mrs. Buckle came. Mrs. Buckle came and lit into the task at hand as though she were a tornado in skirts.

“There’ll be no need for this,” she’d say, tossing aside a favorite gown. “Too extravagant . . . too indecorous . . . too elegant . . . ostentatious.”

Allison hadn’t known her wardrobe was so useless, so contemptible, so preposterous, and she watched with dismay as
Mrs. Buckle, with a sniff, disdained most of it and filled the trunk with warm petticoats, flannel nightgowns, warm vests, boots, ulster coat, pea jacket, twelve handkerchiefs, twenty-four pairs of stockings, six pairs of gloves, a “housewife” with buttons, needles, and thread. “There won’t be anyone at your beck and call to sew and mend and replace buttons,” Mrs. Buckle said firmly, adding a pair of scissors and a darning ball.

“I’m putting in soap for rinsing out your clothes,” she went on, fitting in a bulky packet. “This chaperone of yours won’t do your laundry, I’m sure of that. As for ironing—” Even Mrs. Buckle’s confidence wavered at the thought of ironing.

“Shoe polish,” she said, proceeding doggedly. “Curling iron—you won’t need it. You’ll have to do your own hair, of course. I’ll put in some hair nets—”

Somehow the Adventure no longer seemed quite as Grand as it had in Allison’s dreams.

B
rother Dinwoody, church secretary, stopped by the parsonage with the letter from the Bible School of the Dominion.

His feet, in tall rubber boots, splashed through the remains of winter’s snow, a rich slush; his head, in its shapeless hat, was lifted into the bluest sky imaginable. He was surrounded by the freshest fragrance—of life reawakening, earth reappearing, buds swelling. Phlegmatic man though he was, Brother Dinwoody was stirred in heart.

As he waited on the stoop, his jaunty whistle vied with several issuing from the bush that pressed close on all sides (they really would have to cut that back if the parsonage was to have a garden). His cheery grin greeted his pastor when Parker Jones opened the door; it would have taken a frozen man to resist the blandishments of spring in the Canadian bush.

“I thought it was a robin out here on the porch,” Parker said, smiling.

“An old crow, more like,” Adonijah Dinwoody responded with uncharacteristic jocularity.

If he keeps this up
, Parker thought,
we’ll have to call him a name more frivolous than
Brother
Dinwoody. Ijah, maybe?

“Come on in, Brother,” is what he said, however, and his board secretary obligingly did so. No matter that he tramped water all over the floor; it was nothing but rough boards and would benefit from a little scrubbing when it was mopped up. Besides, any day now the building of the new parsonage was to begin.

“We have a response here to our letter in regard to a supply pastor,” Brother Dinwoody said, and he took a rather crumpled envelope from his pocket.

Parker showed his guest to a chair, took the proffered letter, opened it, and read it silently, assuming Brother Dinwoody had read it previously.

“It’s good news,” he commented. “At least they’re working on our request.”

“We wrote at the right time,” Brother Dinwoody nodded, “just when school is about to let out for summer. He—the fella who wrote—hopes to have someone lined up by that time. This letter was just a courtesy, I guess you’d have to say, lettin’ us know they had received ours, and advisin’ us that they are workin’ on it and will give us the final word later on.”

“Yes, that was thoughtful of them,” Parker said absently, thinking ahead, realizing the arrival of the interim preacher would be several weeks away at best.

Molly was ready for the wedding: dress completed and waiting, other mysterious sewing finished, plans made for the day of the ceremony. And, heaven knew, he, Parker Jones, longtime bachelor, was ready. Ready and eager, and feeling a keen sense of disappointment that there might yet be a delay of several weeks before he could claim the delectable Molly Morrison as his bride.

“I think Molly and I won’t wait,” he said now firmly, and he saw Brother Dinwoody wilt and lose some of his carefree satisfaction with the day and the weather. Obviously visions of having to preach rose in his mind.

“We’ll go ahead with the wedding if Molly is willing, and I think she will be. This means, of course, that we’ll be away from here before the new man arrives. You may remember, Brother, I exhorted you and the other board members to be prepared to fill the pulpit if it became necessary. Well, it looks like it’s going to be necessary. Have you given that some thought?”

Though the day was far from warm, Brother Dinwoody seemed to break out in a sweat. “Isn’t there some other way, some other solution?” he asked feebly.

“Short of a miracle—no,” Parker said. “But I know you can do it. If each of you takes a turn, that’ll take care of a month of Sundays. You can come up with a sermon in that length of time; I know you can.”

Brother Dinwoody seemed far less certain than his pastor. Gloomy-eyed, he pocketed the letter that had spelled the end to his carefree days. His good-bye was far more muted than his hello had been; there was no rollicking whistle; even his hat seemed to have forsaken its rakish angle and sat on his head in a manner most subdued.

Parker followed the dejected man to his buggy and stood alongside for a moment. “If you think you need extra time to prepare, Brother,” he said kindly, “speak up for the fourth Sunday before the others beat you to it.”

Brother Dinwoody’s chest heaved with a burden he’d not had when he arrived. Then, he’d been full of the joy of life, anticipating the bush’s glorious spring with nothing more alarming to trouble him than a broken plowshare, a gimpy horse, and a calf due too soon.

The board met and voted—after considerable discussion—to accept Parker Jones’s suggestion that they themselves fill the pulpit, freeing him to go ahead and get married and leave for the East before the Bible school man arrived.

Last-minute plans for the wedding, long in the works, were finalized. Everything was ready except the actual setting of the
date, which the couple now announced. The entire district was agog with expectation. For this would not be a home wedding with only the family in attendance, as was the custom, but a “church” wedding. That is, it would be held in the schoolhouse, and the full congregation, the entire district of Bliss, would be included.

Brother Dinwoody was too slow in expressing his wishes—or too wishy-washy—concerning his choice of speaking dates; Bly Condon obviously had the same thought, and before Brother Dinwoody could say “fourth Sunday,” Bly had the date snatched up for himself. Brother Dinwoody’s despair accelerated; how could he bring anything meaningful to the people of Bliss when he himself was so mired in the slough of despond?

Angus Morrison would take the first Sunday, Herkimer Pinkard the second; Brother Dinwoody found himself slated for the third Sunday. Maybe, he thought with faint faith, if he prayed fervently enough, the new preacher would arrive before his turn came up.

Even then Parker Jones was saying, “If the new man doesn’t arrive by then, you can start the slate over again.”

Two weeks later, on a glorious Sunday morning, the schoolhouse was packed long before Parker Jones took his place behind the makeshift pulpit to deliver the day’s sermon; the wedding ceremony would follow.

It was an unusual arrangement—Sunday sermon, followed by a wedding. Saturday would have been a better day, particularly for the groom with his pulpit responsibilities. But spring work was underway, and Parker and Molly would not ask their hardworking neighbors to set it aside for them. Since most of them obeyed the biblical injunction to labor six days, their attendance at church on the seventh was a matter of course, barring illness or tragedy.

They were present and in place on this day, eager for the most special occasion of the year, easily rivaling the Christmas concert in importance and excitement—the marriage of their pastor and their own Molly Morrison.

The hymnbooks—
Hymns of Praise Number One
, with shape notes, bound with jute manila—were distributed. Sister Dinwoody at the organ was at her best. Her generous hips, wider by far than the crimson mohair organ stool on which she sat, pumped energetically, bringing up the pressure in the bellows; her work-worn fingers set the stop knobs just so and pounded out the melody on the yellowing celluloid keys. The hymn of choice made a fitting opening for the occasion: “O Happy Day!”

And though the small congregation couldn’t rightly fill the quota mentioned in “Hark! Ten Thousand Harps and Voices,” their enthusiasm—when they reached the chorus of “Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen!”—swelled and lifted through the building, out the open door, and across the bush in glorious, if ragged, testimony.

Parker Jones, shined and pressed, did his best to preach. But it seemed he would never be done smiling; it was not a day for rebuking or chastising. It was a time of expectation, of assurance, assurance first of all that Christ would return one day and, secondly, that he, Parker Jones, though leaving them temporarily, would return to them.

“Philippians, chapter one, verses 25 and 26,” he announced as he began, Bible in hand, and there was a rustling of fragile leaves as the faithful turned to the proper place: “I know,” he read, “that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again.”

Heads lifted, eyes shone, a few mouths smiled; Parker Jones had taken the words of the apostle Paul and applied them to their present situation. The Philippians’ consolation was theirs. The Philippians’ admonition was theirs—Pastor Jones concluded with a portion of the twenty-seventh verse: “Whether I
come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.”

Amen and amen.

So consoled, so admonished, they were bound to stand fast until their shepherd should return to them.

A brief closing prayer followed the short exhortation, and then, rather than the usual dismissal and turning toward the door and home, an expectant silence fell.