Read Online Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross - Free Book Online Page A

evangelists have little-boy names? Just open up the Abbotsville Press most any day and you’ll find Jimmys and Johnnys, Billy Earls and Ronnies advertising their services at some local church, usually with somebody named Dawn or Tammy or Debbie singing and playing the piano or the saxophone or some such thing. You’d think grown men would put aside childish things, including childish names.
    That’s why I liked the Presbyterian church; we believed in doing things decently and in order. When you went to church, you knew exactly what you were going to get. We didn’t want to be surprised or entertained. And, Lord knows, we didn’t want anything changed.
    Take that time we had an interim pastor who changed the order of worship so that the offering plates were passed right after the sermon instead of beforehand during the anthem. You’d have thought he’d instituted something indecent. It upset a lot of people who’d been accustomed to digging out a dollar bill or their pledge envelopes as soon as the choir director stood up. I didn’t think it was a good idea, either, but not because I was against change. I just thought the pastor was taking a big chance in passing the plates right after he’d finished preaching. I mean, what if he’d had an off day and his sermon hadn’t been too good? I wouldn’t risk it myself.
    Wesley Lloyd spoke to him about it, and pretty soon the order of worship went back to the way we’d always done it.
    But as soon as Pastor Ledbetter accepted our call, he saw the lay of the land right away and didn’t make a false move. He wasa quick study when it came to latching onto the men of power and agreeing with them. Contrary to most of the new breed coming out of our seminaries, he was a dyed-in-the-wool Calvinist, which meant he was as good as Wesley Lloyd at finding Scripture verses to support his opinions. He and Wesley Lloyd saw eye to eye on just about everything, and if they didn’t, why, you’d never know it from Pastor Ledbetter. He picked up right away that Wesley Lloyd didn’t like confrontations or arguments about the way the church was run.
    I’d noticed recently, though, that Pastor Ledbetter had a freer look about him, both as a pastor and as a pulpiteer. More expansive, maybe, in the way he moved and sermonized, the last of which he’d do at the drop of a hat or a greeting on the street. I thought I knew what he was feeling—something close to being loosened from the ties that bound.

C HAPTER E IGHT
    A FTER WALKING ACROSS the parking lot, I found it a relief to step inside the air-conditioned church. I went through the fellowship hall and on into the preacher’s office suite. Norma Cantrell, Pastor Ledbetter’s secretary, always acted like she was doing me a favor whenever I wanted to talk to him. As I walked into her office, she glanced behind me and tried to crane her neck to see out in the hall. She was looking for Little Lloyd, I knew, and I was glad I’d left him at home. She liked to make out like she was so professional, but she was the biggest gossip I knew. That’s why she liked her job, since every Presbyterian in trouble sooner or later ended up talking to the preacher. I’d warned Pastor Ledbetter about her talkative tendencies, but he’d just patted my shoulder and told me he’d take care of it. Ever since then she’d flounced herself around anytime I was in her office, not that anybody with all that weight ought to do any flouncing. So I knew the preacher had confided in her, and that’s when I stopped confiding in him.
    Still, he was my pastor and he’d done a good job burying Wesley Lloyd. The sermon had been all I could ask for, telling all the good deeds Wesley Lloyd had done for the church and the community, and making me feel proud.
    But I wasn’t feeling proud on this visit, just broken and humble. I longed for some spiritual comfort for the double bereavement that was now my lot.
    Norma patted her teased hair with one hand and, with the