Stephanie Mittman (9 page)

But her father’s words, as he always complained, were going in one of Abby’s ears and out the other, no matter how hard she tried to work up some sorrow at Joseph Panner’s passing. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Mr. Panner, it was just that she couldn’t forget the letter in her pocket.
Married
. Her cousin was going to be married. And Abby was happy for her. Delirious. Why, she couldn’t be happier if … She looked over at Seth, next to Ella Welsh, decked out in more black crepe than they’d hung on the firehouse when the old chief had died.

Seth stood solemnly, respectfully. But she could see his fingers curling and uncurling, and she was sure that all he could think about was getting away from the cemetery. Only twenty or thirty feet away, Sarrie lay still and cold beneath the hard earth. Despite Abby’s trying, the winter weather had made it impossible for anything to grow over her grave. The ground was still as raw as Seth’s pain.

He looked tired. She’d heard that Mr. Youtt’s oldest son, John, had awakened in the night with a horrible pain in his stomach. They’d run for Seth and he’d spent the night there, packing Johnnie’s stomach in ice and trying to keep him calm. Mrs. Youtt was home with the boy now, and she knew that Seth would be hurrying
back to him as soon as the funeral was over—sooner if little Jenny Youtt came running for him.

She wondered about the last time Seth had taken a day for himself, gone fishing or sat by the fire with a good book. When Sarrie was alive he had always taken time to sit with her. Sometimes he would read to her, Sarrie said. Sometimes he would take out his violin and play one of the tunes that Sarah loved.

Abby had heard him playing once. She’d been bringing Sarrie the latest issue of
Demorest’s Magazine
and they hadn’t heard her come in. The moment Seth saw her, he’d stopped. She’d bet anything that he hadn’t played a note, read a chapter, even gone for a walk to stretch his legs, since Sarrie’s death.

Her father was eulogizing Joseph Panner, praising his generosity and tactfully skipping over the source of his funds. The way her father put it, it sounded a lot like Mr. Panner had very wisely, in his last moments, bought his place in heaven.

“And a church shall stand testament to the good in his heart and the purity in his soul,” her father said, and even at a distance she could see Seth’s eyebrows rise. Purity of his soul indeed! The man drank, swore, and caroused enough to keep two taverns in business and Miss Ella Welsh in silk.

“I suppose this isn’t the right time or place,” Mr. Youtt, the town’s only lawyer said, clearing his throat before interrupting her father. “But before you start building that church, Reverend Merganser, you ought to know that there isn’t all that much money left, and what there is he left in bulk to the town of Eden’s Grove to do with as they see fit.”

Ella Welsh all but collapsed against Seth, who steadied her more solicitously than Abby thought she deserved. Of course, Seth was a gentleman and a doctor. She couldn’t expect him to just let the woman fall down, could she?

“Would you look at Ella Welsh!” Prudence whispered against Abby’s neck. “It looks like she’s already staking out her next victim!”

“And it’s
your
victim … I mean your man,” Patience added. At least she had the good sense to keep her voice down, but then with their father being a reverend, they’d all pretty much been raised on funerals and solemn events.

“He’s not
my
anything,” Abby hissed at her sister as her father spoke to the assembled group about Joseph Panner’s money and the man’s intentions as if they’d been written in stone and handed down to him.

“They say a zebra can’t change his stripes, but Joseph Panner did just that, and as we lower his body into the ground, there is solace in the fact that a church will grow from it where all of Eden’s Grove’s citizens can worship as one and sing their own joyful songs unto the Lord—songs of thanksgiving—”

“I think we ought to just split the money between us,” Mr. Ellenberg, the new butcher, said. “I mean, we aren’t all of the same faith and those who want a new church could contribute their portion to that church, and those who don’t—”

“I think we ought to install streetlights,” Mrs. Winston, the milliner said. “A body isn’t safe at night walking about in the dark.”

Six men stood holding the sturdy leather straps slung
beneath the heavy coffin of Joseph Panner. Each of them kept their eyes glued to the reverend, waiting for the signal to lower the coffin.

“Only heathens don’t want a church,” her father said, his cheeks reddening. “Why, what kind of a town hasn’t got a church? I’m not even sure it is a town without a church to unify it. Maybe it’s just a collection of houses and businesses that only have a postal address in common?”

One of the men holding the leather straps shifted his weight and coughed. Her father didn’t seem to notice.

“Meaning no disrespect, Reverend Merganser, but there are people who don’t worship the Son and the Holy Ghost, but only our Father. I don’t need your church to pray to my God, so why should I put my share—”

“There are no shares,” Mr. Youtt said. “And before we pick his bones clean, it would be nice if we laid Joseph Panner to rest, don’t you think, Reverend? I have a sick child at home and I—”

“Oh, yes! Yes! Lower it!” her father all but shouted. “It’s not as if there is anything to discuss anyway. Joseph Panner meant for there to be a grand church—a cathedral—here in Eden’s Grove, and by God, there will be.”

As he said the last, Joseph Panner’s casket hit bottom with a clunk, as if to put an exclamation point on her father’s declaration. What an article this would make for
The Weekly Herald:
“Argument Breaks Out at Funeral of Eden’s Grove’s Richest Man. Will the Town Get Its Church?”

She was halfway through writing the first paragraph in her head when she heard Seth’s soft voice.

“Before one dime of Panner’s legacy is spent, I think we need to have a good deal of discussion about what the people of this town really need. Obviously this is not the time or the place. I propose that we meet in the grange hall tonight and—”

“Is there really anything to discuss?” her father asked. “We need a church more than we need anything else on God’s green earth and that is—”

“We need a hospital. If not a hospital, then a clinic. We need someplace that can be kept sterile. I have only one examining room, and I can’t purify it between each patient. Johnnie Youtt’s got appendicitis. If I can’t get the inflammation to subside, I’m going to need to operate on that boy. And once I open him up, one little germ, something left from a previous patient, can lead to his death—”

“But surely you don’t believe that could be more important than a church. Why, where will his family go to pray?” her father asked. “Where will they find God and ask that the kingdom of heaven be—”

Abby listened to her father. She’d listened to him all her life, and knew that he had a heart as good as any, knew that the church was not a tribute to himself but to God. Good as her father was, well as he meant, he was missing something so essential here that Abby found it impossible to hold her tongue.

“Dr. Hendon is talking about saving lives,” she said, and she could see the hurt cross her father’s face as surely as if she had struck him with her hand. And she could see that it was true, what Shakespeare said about
how an ungrateful child’s words could be sharper than a serpent’s tooth, because her father’s soul was bleeding for everyone to see.

In the quiet, her father said softly, “And I am talking about saving souls.”

She waited for someone else to say it, but no one did, despite how obvious it was to Abby. Finally, reluctantly, she laid a hand on her father’s arm, and said, “Papa, you don’t need a building to save souls. You just need faith. Seth needs a physical place to do his work.”

She felt Ansel’s arm come around her, hug her against him in silent praise.

“Dr. Hendon is doing
his
work, but my ‘his’ has a capital
H
. It’s the Lord’s work that I am doing,” her father said, so clearly wounded by her betrayal.

“I like to think that I am too,” Seth said softly.

“You?” her father asked, his voice sharp with anger, and Abby held her breath, sensing that battle lines were being drawn, that things would be said in another moment that could never be taken back. “You don’t even attend church. Of course you want a hospital so you have a place to spend your Sundays while the rest of us are on the street. You—”

“Well, this is some fine eulogy,” Ella Welsh said with a humph for punctuation. “Joe’d have gotten a good laugh over how you all can’t get him in the ground before you’re fighting over his money.”

“You’re right, of course,” her father said. “It’s just that I think that a fine church is a more than fitting memorial to Joseph Panner.”

“As would be a hospital,” Seth said under his breath.

“Well, Joe never talked much about dying, but I
don’t think he’d much fancy a church or any sort of hospital,” Ella said, wrapping her cloak more tightly around a body that had apparently denied itself nothing. “I think a statue of him in the square would be something that he would’ve liked. Perhaps—”

“We don’t have a square,” someone said, and everyone began to move away from the grave site toward the cemetery gates. “Or a village green, like we had back East when I was growing up. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a—”

Whoever it was that was talking—Abby couldn’t see her—stopped suddenly as Jenny Youtt came running toward the cemetery as fast as her little legs would carry her.

“Where’s the doc?” she asked, and the sea of people parted leaving Seth in the girl’s vision. “Ma wants to know if Johnnie can eat. He’s powerful hungry and—”

Seth looked relieved. Abby thought she even saw the hint of a smile on his face as he took the little girl’s hand and suggested they go back to her house to have a look at her brother.

And as Seth relaxed, so did she. The muscles in her neck seemed to ease. Even the throbbing in her head seemed to lessen when she saw him smile.

“Eight o’clock at the grange hall,” Ansel called out. “If you can’t make it, Doc, send word.” To Abby he said, “We’d better get over to the office and make some bills to post around town. I’ll stop home and tell Emily to spread the word. You stop in at Walker’s Mercantile and tell Frank to let all his customers know.”

She almost felt excited at the prospect, and then she
saw her father. He was headed right for her, and if he was excited too, it was certainly not in the same way.

“I am sorry we let that man into our house,” she heard him tell her mother. “I am sorry he broke our bread and that I let him look at my toes. That poor man is sick in his heart and soul and I’m afraid that he truly intends to stand in the way of our church!”

“Papa, he wants to save people, same as you,” Abby said, trying to take her father’s arm, only to have him pull it away from her. “You are on the same side, you two. You both want to—”

“The same thing! Why, I want what’s best for everybody—even the Baptists’—souls, and that doctor friend of yours only wants what’s best for their bodies. Imagine! Interrupting a funeral like that! Bringing up the man’s gift to the church like that, causing controversy—”

“Seth didn’t cause the controversy.
You
—” Abby began to correct, only to feel the point of her mother’s boot against her calf, and catch the warning look her mother gave her. “Well, anyway, I think everything will depend on how much money Mr. Panner actually left us. Maybe there’ll be enough for both of you.”
For both my men
, she thought. And if there wasn’t, she knew, as “Dear Miss Winnie” said, just where her allegiance lay.

Seth considered skipping the meeting at the grange hall now that it was clear Johnny Youtt was all right. Of course, he’d have to watch for any swelling on the right
side of the boy’s abdomen. The appendix might get inflamed again and he’d have to consider surgery again.

Which was why, despite how tired he was, how committed he was to leaving Eden’s Grove anyway, and how reluctant he was to go head to head with the reverend, he planned to go over to the grange hall just as soon as he checked back at his office and made sure that there were no emergencies posted on his door. He’d worked out a system with the folks in Eden’s Grove. He’d leave a note on the front door saying where he could be found, and if they felt that they could wait until he was done wherever he was, they’d leave a note explaining the nature of the problem and go on home to wait for his return.

Of course, Abby left him all sorts of notes. Notes that said “Don’t forget to eat supper! Mr. Woo left your shirts with me at the
Herald
. Take a deep breath and smile!”

Tonight there was no note on the door. Well, good, he told himself. Good, and good again. There were no emergencies, and surely he could not have been looking forward to another of Abidance Merganser’s loony notes.

He had to admit, though, that Abby had surely surprised and impressed him at Panner’s funeral. When had she gotten so insightful? Was she really the same Abby who had left him a bag of black licorice nibs with instructions to put one over his front tooth to see if any of his patients noticed? Such a funny little girl. Frivolous. It was as if she just refused to see the seriousness of life itself.

He checked his watch. He had just enough time to
take a cup of tea before heading over to the grange hall. As he opened the door to his office he heard a noise, which was quickly followed by a clattering that he had somehow caused himself by kicking whatever was lying in wait for him in his doorway.

“Seth?”

Oh, great. Instead of a note, he had the loon in the flesh.

“What are you doing here in the dark?” he asked, turning up the light and looking at an array of pans and picks on the floor. “What is this stuff?”

“Oh,” she said, stretching and yawning and causing his insides to turn over as he watched her innocently come awake in the chair behind his desk. “I guess I fell asleep while I was waiting for you. Do you like your presents?” She gestured at the mess he’d tripped over as if it were something precious. He stared at the various pieces. A pick, a pan, a mattock, and a miner’s bandanna.