Read Online Out to Canaan by Jan Karon - Free Book Online Page A

nothin’ but trouble,” said Harley, grinning weakly. “Some rotted out, some was pulled out, and th’ rest was knocked out. I’ve got used t’ things th’ way they are. Teeth’d just take up a whole lot of room in there.”
    â€œI’m comin’ after school an’ stayin’ nights,” Lace announced. “Olivia and Cynthia said I could.”
    â€œGood, Lace. Glad to have you around. You’ve got a fine friend, Harley.”
    Harley grinned. “She’s a good ’un, all right. But awful mean to sick people.”
    â€œWell, you’re lying on your money and your truck’s over at Lew Boyd’s getting the oil change you mentioned, so you can rest easy.”
    â€œI hate that I’ve let my oil go, but here lately, I’ve had t’ let ever’thing go. I didn’t mean f’r you t’ do that, Rev’rend, I’m goin’ t’ do somethin’ for you an’ th’ missus, soon as I’m up an’ about.”
    â€œOh, but I wasn’t saying—”
    â€œI know you wasn’t, but I’m goin’ t’ do it, I’m layin’ here thinkin’ about it. Lace tol’ me you got a Buick with some age on it, I might like t’ overhaul your engine.”
    Father Tim laughed heartily. “Overhaul my engine?”
    â€œAfter my liquor days, I was in car racin’.”
    Was he imagining that good color suddenly returned to Harley Welch’s cheeks? “You were a driver?”
    â€œNossir, I was crew chief f’r Junior Watson.”
    â€œJunior Watson! Well, I’ll say!”
    Harley’s grin grew even broader. He didn’t think preachers knew about such as that.
    That explains it, mused the rector, going downstairs. Yesterday, he had headed Harley’s old truck onto Main Street, thinking he’d have to nurse it to Lew Boyd’s two blocks away. When he hammered down on the accelerator, he saw he had another think coming. He had roared by Rodney Underwood’s patrol car in a blur, as if he’d been shot from a cannon.
    He had never gone from Wisteria Lane to the town monument in such record time, except on those occasions when Barnabas felt partial to relieving himself on a favorite monument boxwood.

    â€œLandscaping,” announced Emma, her mouth set like the closing on a Ziploc bag.
    â€œLandscaping?” he asked.
    â€œMack Stroupe.”
    â€œMack Stroupe?”
    â€œHedges. Shrubs. Bushes.” In her fury, his secretary had resorted to telegraphic communications. “Grass,” she said with loathing.
    He didn’t recall ever seeing grass in Mack’s yard. Dandelions, maybe . . .
    â€œPlus . . .”
    â€œPlus what?”
    Emma looked at him over her half-glasses. “Lucy Stroupe is getting her hair dyed today!”
    Manicures, landscaping, dyed hair. He didn’t know when his mind had been so boggled by political events, local or otherwise.

    He thought he’d never seen his garden look more beautiful. It filled him with an odd sense of longing and joy, all at once.
    Surely there had been other times, now forgotten, when the beauty and mystery of this small place, enclosed by house and hedges, had moved him like this . . . .
    The morning mist rose from the warm ground and trailed acrossthe garden like a vapor from the moors. Under the transparent wash of gray lay the vibrant emerald of new-mown grass, and the unfurled leaves of the hosta. Over there, in the bed of exuberant astilbe, crept new tendrils of the strawberry plants whose blossoms glowed in the mist like pink fires.
    It was a moment of perfection that he would probably not find again this year, and he sat without moving, almost without breathing. There was the upside of a garden, when one was digging and planting, heaving and hauling, and then the downside, when it was all weeding and grooming and watering and sweating.