Out to Canaan (125 page)

His heart still pounding from the final sprint across Baxter Park, he burst into the kitchen, which smelled of lemons, cinnamon, and freshly brewed coffee. “Let's do it!” he cried.

And get it over with, he thought.

The drawers were out, the shelves were emptied, the doors were lashed shut with a rope. This time, they were dragging it across the floor on a chenille bedspread, left behind by a former rector.

“ . . .
a better way of life!
”

Cynthia looked up. “What did you say, dearest?”

“I didn't say anything.”

“
Mack Stroupe will bring improvement, not change
 . . .”

They stepped to the open window of the stair landing and looked down to the street. A new blue pickup truck with a public address system was slowly cruising along Wisteria Lane, hauling a sign in the bed.
Mack for Mitford,
it read,
Mitford for Mack.

“ . . .
improvement, not change. So, think about it, friends and neigh-
bors. And remember—here in Mitford, we already have the good life. With Mack as Mayor, we'll all have a better life!
” A loud blast of country music followed: “
If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.
 . . .”

She looked at her husband. “Mack Stroupe! Please, no.”

He wrinkled his brow and frowned. “This is May. Elections aren't 'til November.”

“Starting a mite early.”

“I'll say,” he agreed, feeling distinctly uneasy.

“He's done broke th' noise ordinance,” said Chief Rodney Underwood, hitching up his gun belt.

Rodney had stepped to the back of the Main Street Grill to say hello to the early morning regulars in the rear booth. “Chapter five, section five-two in the Mitford Code of Ordinance lays it out. No PA systems for such a thing as political campaigns.”

“Startin' off his public career as a pure criminal,” said Mule Skinner.

“Which is th' dadgum law of the land for politicians!”
Mitford Muse
editor J.C. Hogan mopped his brow with a handkerchief.

“Well, no harm done. I slapped a warning on 'im, that ordinance is kind of new. Used to, politicians was haulin' a PA up and down th' street, ever' whichaway.”

“What about that truck with the sign?” asked Father Tim.

“He can haul th' sign around all he wants to, but th' truck has to keep movin'. If he parks it on town property, I got 'im. I can run 'im in and he can go to readin'
Southern Livin'.
” The local jail was the only detention center the rector ever heard of that kept neat stacks of
Southern Living
magazine in the cells.

“I hate to see a feller make a fool of hisself,” said Rodney. “Ain't
no
body can whip Esther Cunningham—an' if you say I said that, I'll say you lied.”

“Right,” agreed Mule.

“Course, she
has
told it around that one of these days, her an' Ray are takin' off in th' RV and leave th' mayorin' to somebody else.”

Mule shook his head. “Fifteen years is a long time to be hog-tied to a thankless job, all right.”

“Is that Mack's new truck?” asked Father Tim. As far he knew, Mack never had two cents to rub together, as his hotdog stand across from the gas station didn't seem to rake in much business.

“I don't know whose truck it is, it sure couldn't be Mack's. Well, I ain't got all day to loaf, like you boys.” Rodney headed for the register to pick up his breakfast order. “See you in th' funny papers.”

J.C. scowled. “I don't know that I'd say nobody can whip Esther. Mack's for improvement, and we're due for a little improvement around here, if you ask me.”

“Nobody asked you,” said Mule.

Father Tim dialed the number from his office. “Mayor!”

“So it's the preacher, is it? I've been lookin' for you.”

“What's going on?”

“If that low-down scum thinks he can run me out of office, he's got another think coming.”

“Does this mean you're not going to quit and take off with Ray in the RV?”

“Shoot! That's what I say just to hear my head roar. Listen—you don't think the bum has a chance, do you?”

“To tell the truth, Esther, I believe he does have a chance . . . .”

Esther's voice lowered. “You do?”

“About the same chance as a snowball in July.”

She laughed uproariously and then sobered. “Of course, there is
one
way that Mack Stroupe could come in here and sit behind th' mayor's desk.”

He was alarmed. “Really?”

“But only one. And that's over my dead body.”

Something new was going on at home nearly every day.

On Tuesday evening, he found a large, framed watercolor hanging in the rectory's once-gloomy hallway. It was of Violet, Cynthia's white cat and the heroine of the award-winning children's books created by his unstoppable wife. Violet sat on a brocade cloth, peering into a vase filled with nasturtiums and a single, wide-eyed goldfish.

“Stunning!” he said. “Quite a change.”

“Call it an
improvement,
” she said, pleased.

On Wednesday, he found new chintz draperies in the dining room and parlor, which gave the place a dazzling elegance that fairly bowled him over. But—hadn't they agreed that neither would spend more than a hundred bucks without the other's consent?

She read his mind. “So, the draperies cost five hundred, but since the watercolor is worth that and more on the current market, it's a wash.”

“Aha.”

“I'm also doing one of Barnabas, for your study. Which means,” she said, “that the family coffers will respond by allotting new draperies for our bedroom.”

“You're a bookkeeping whiz, Kavanagh. But why new draperies when we're retiring in eighteen months?”

“I've had them made so they can go anywhere and fit any kind of windows. If worse comes to worst, I'll remake them into summer dresses, and vestments for my clergyman.”

“That's the spirit!”

Why did he feel his wife could get away with anything where he was concerned? Was it because he'd waited sixty-two years, like a stalled ox, to fall in love and marry?

If he and Cynthia had written a detailed petition on a piece of paper and sent it heavenward, the weather couldn't have been more glorious on the day of the talked-about tea.

Much to everyone's relief, the primroses actually bloomed. However, no sooner had the eager blossoms appeared than Hessie Mayhew bore down on them with a vengeance, in yards and hidden nooks everywhere. She knew precisely the location of every cluster of primroses in the village, not to mention the exact whereabouts of each woods violet, lilac bush, and pussy willow.

“It's Hessie!” warned an innocent bystander on Hessie's early morning run the day of the tea. “Stand back!”

Armed with a collection of baskets that she wore on her arms like so many bracelets, Hessie did not allow help from the Episcopal
Church Women, nor any of her own presbyters. She worked alone, she worked fast, and she worked smart.

After going at a trot through neighborhood gardens, huffing up Old Church Lane to a secluded bower of early-blooming shrubs, and combing four miles of country roadside, she showed up at the back door of the rectory at precisely eleven a.m., looking triumphant.

Sodden with morning dew and black dirt, she delivered a vast quantity of flowers, moss, and grapevine into the hands of the rector's house help, Puny Guthrie, then flew home to bathe, dress, and put antibiotic cream on her knees, which were skinned when she leaned over to pick a wild trillium and fell sprawling.

The Episcopal Church Women, who had arrived as one body at ten-thirty, flew into the business of arranging “Hessie's truck,” as they called it, while Barnabas snored in the garage and Violet paced in her carrier.

“Are you off?” asked Cynthia, as the rector came at a trot through the hectic kitchen.

“Off and running. I finished polishing the mail slot, tidying the slipcover on the sofa, and trimming the lavender by the front walk. I also beat the sofa pillows for any incipient dust and coughed for a full five minutes.”

“Well done!” she said cheerily, giving him a hug.