The first time I touched a dead person, I was ten years old at my grandfather’s funeral. I stared at his profile because I was not tall enough to look down at his face. I noticed that the end of his nose turned slightly downward. My Aunt Thelma set a chair next to the casket. She helped me kneel on the seat of the chair for a better view.
I looked. It was Grampa for sure. As I turned to descend from the chair, Aunt Thelma said, “Carol, would you like to kiss Grampa goodbye.”
“No, thank you,” I said. I raised my right hand and brushed my fingertips across his hands. They felt cool and hard, like a river rock. His hands were folded around a small white book with a tiny gold cross on the cover.
During the singing and the praying, I avoided looking at Grampa’s body. I stared at the back of the chair in front of me and remembered sitting on his lap in his spindle-back rocker. He set down his pipe before lifting me onto his thin legs. He was already sick and had to rest during the day between one chore and the next. From the time I could navigate the grass in Grampa’s front yard, I followed him to the garden or the chicken house. I rarely made the entire journey by myself and had to be carried in his arms. Once we played a joke on Gramma and my parents. He put me behind the bib of his overalls. My curly head stuck out the top and my arms flapped the air from under the straps.
After the funeral, there was a potluck lunch served in the church basement. The church women brought out aprons from somewhere and tied them over their funeral dresses. They bustled from kitchen to serving table to checking on their children and back to the kitchen. The choreography had been worked out over years of Wednesday night pot luck dinners before the weekly prayer meeting. There were fruit salads and vegetable salads, including a cabbage salad with long thin slices of carrot curled like Christmas ribbon.
Mom fed baby Pamela and Dad talked to the men he fished with when we visited Cedar County. People I had never met gave me hugs and kissed my forehead. “I’m so sorry, Carol. I know you and your family will be a blessing to your grandmother in the years ahead.” I gave the same answer each time: “I will try my best.”
Virginia, the grand-niece of Gramma’s best friend and neighbor, Mrs. Schwager, introduced herself. “I’m known as Virgie. We are the same age did you know that? Your grampa was a nice man I guess. Do you want to see something funny?” She returned to the serving table. I watched her back, expecting her to get a second dessert. After a few seconds, she turned and looked at me. She had two of the carrot ribbons from the cabbage salad stuck in her hair over each ear. I got the giggles, and Virgie shook her head to make her “earrings” jiggle, but they fell onto the floor.
I talked to Virgie briefly when her Aunt Hilda was preparing to leave the lunch. She hugged my Gramma and pulled on Virgie’s dress sleeve to move her toward the door. I followed them, to say goodbye to Virgie. She whispered, “I’m staying with my aunt for two weeks. I got to bring my bicycle this time. I can’t wait to ride it to the cave.” A small blob of salad dressing fell out of Virgie’s hair when she spun around to catch up to her aunt at the church basement door.
We returned to Gramma’s house, as it was known from then on. The adults drank coffee in the kitchen. I fell asleep at one end of the sofa and Pammy snoozed on the other end. Later, after a light supper of leftovers that the church ladies insisted Gramma bring home, Dad asked me to sit on the porch with him and watch for the first lightning bug. “Whoever calls out the first sighting gets this nickel.”
We sat in silence as the evening’s grey blanket fell over us. I earned my nickel, although I realize now that Dad would never had said he saw one if we had sat until midnight.
“Your mama and I are going home on Sunday evening. I need to work on Monday and Pammy has a doctor appointment the same day.”
“Okay,” I said. “Want me to catch some lightning bugs to take home in a jar?”
“I don’t think you mother wants lightning bugs in the car. Not even in a jar.” We both laughed at our rhyme, and I said we sounded like Dr. Seuss. Dad continued, “I have one other thing to tell you. Actually, I am asking you for a favor. This is something only a smart, big girl like you could handle.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “For fifty cents.”
“That sounds fair enough. Your mom and I want you to stay with your Gramma for a few days. We will be back next weekend to bring you home. What do you think?”
“By myself. For a week?” The idea was both scary and exciting.
“With Gramma,” Dad said. “Help her around the house. Sing to her; you know she likes that a lot. I bet she would teach you to crochet if you asked her. We don’t want to leave her alone just now. Do you understand?”
“Who would I play with?” I asked.
“There are a few kids around. Mrs. Schwager’s niece is staying a couple of weeks. You met her at the funeral,” Dad said.
I felt that I had done a good job with the negotiations, so far. I decided to see if I could do a little better. “You said fifty cents. Is that for the whole week?”
“Oh no,” Dad said. It was not the “oh no” as in how dare you ask for more. It wasn’t “oh no” like not in your wildest dreams. It was “Oh no” as in “Of course not. I would not think of taking advantage of you.” We settled for $2.00 for the week. Tootsie Pops were $0.02 in those days. A package of Hostess Twinkies cost $0.12.”
“I’ll do it!” I promised. I stood up and spun around in a little victory dance. “Virgie said she has her bicycle. Yippee.”
Dad stood up and then leaned down to meet me face-to-face. “No bike riding,” he said.
“Not even if Gramma and Mrs. Schwager say it’s okay?”
“Correct. Don’t even ask them,” he said slowly, shaking his head with a clown smile. It was a command but it did not sound mean.
“Can I ask why?” I said.
“What if you fell off the bike and got hurt. Poor Grandma would be so upset. She doesn’t need any more bad news,” he said.
I held the Mason jar tightly and turned the lid. They little bugs flew out with their tail lights on.
Dad patted my shoulder and stretch his arms over his head. “Too much sitting today. Truth is, Daryl, if the bike got broken, I can’t afford to pay for the repairs. So, no bike riding. Is it a deal?”
Daryl was Dad’s pet name for me. He swore it had nothing to do with wanting a son instead of a daughter named Carol. Sometimes he called me Meryl or Barrel. It meant he loved me, Mom said.
“It’s not a deal until we shake on it,” I said. We shook hands. I did not realize one of the lightning bugs was still in my hand. I yipped in disgust and we both laughed.
On Monday morning, I woke up late. I found Gramma sitting on the porch, holding a big bowl of peas she had picked from the garden. She wore a pair of Grampa’s work socks. Her garden boots stood in the corner.
“I can help,” I said. I had helped Mom pick and clean vegetables from the garden when Grampa was so sick. We visited often, along with my aunts and their families. If Grampa was having a bad day with his cancer, he cried loudly. It scared me so that Dad would put Pammy in her stroller and take us both for a walk to a little creek nearby.
I brought a bowl from the kitchen for my lap. Gramma gathered a big handful of pea pods and put them in my bowl. I could not snap the ends off the shells as fast as Gramma did, and she didn’t have to look at her hands. I think I averaged shelling one bean to Gramma’s ten, but she said I was doing fine. That day was the first time I ate raw peas. They were much better than cooked.
Our bucket of emptied shells was filling when Mrs. Schwager and Virgie crossed the street and joined us on the porch. The ladies went into the house to make coffee. Virgie hopped on one foot and then the other to make the porch boards creek. Her copper curls bobbled in the sun.
“Want to go with me to the cave?” Virgie asked.
“Where is it?”
“By the creek,” she said. Virgie squinted into the sun as if telling the time by it. “Not now. We’ll go after lunch when the old ladies are napping.”
The ladies returned with their coffee. “You girls get a bag and pick some peas for Miz Schwager.” I grabbed a paper grocery bag from the kitchen, jumped off the porch, and ran after Virgie to the garden.
I can’t say I liked Virgie right away. She fascinated me. For one thing, her hair was the color of a penny and so curly it looked like she had springs in her hair. Virgie was different than the girls I knew from school. I saw instantly that she had so much of what I wished I had: swagger, fearlessness, or self-confidence. Ultimately, I decided Virgie was brave where I was smart. Opposites attract, as they say.
When the ladies were napping after lunch, Virgie and I walked across the street to her aunt’s house. She showed me her bicycle, a turquoise Schwinn Excelsior, in a wooden shed called a “smoke house.” There were no windows in the place. I did not see any ashtrays or match books.
Virgie pulled her bike out of the smoke house and put straddled the frame.
“Who smokes in here?” I asked. “You?”
“Not me. Oh, I see what you mean. A smoke house is where farmers smoked meat they butchered. Hung the pieces at the end of those ropes.” She pedaled her bike across the grass and stopped. She twisted around and looked at me from under her eyebrows.
“That bike is cool,” I said. I noticed the basket hung slightly crooked from the handle bars. One of the foot pedals had lost half its rubber, and the front bumper was scratched. This told me that Virgie was tough, she played hard, and took chances.
“I guess you don’t have caves in the city, huh?”
“I don’t know of any,” I said.
“Come with me. I’ll show you a really spooky one.”
“Bats live in caves, don’t they?” I asked.
“Not in this one. It’s too small. You can ride the bike to the cave, if you want. I’ll ride back,” Virgie asked.
“Can I? Let’s go.”
It is harder to pedal a bicycle on a country road than on a city sidewalk. A patch of gravel made the front tire jerk in my hands and braking required all my strength to keep the back tire from spinning to the side. Virgie ran ahead of me. She turned and laughed when I had to stand to keep up the speed. I did get used to the rough ride before we reached the cave. My father’s prohibition against riding a borrowed bike flew right through my hair as I picked up speed.
The cave was not much bigger than the smoke house. We sat close together in the cool, semi-darkness of the cave. Our knees touched when we crossed our legs. Vergie said she found the remains of a small campfire once. “It was probably a hobo made the fire,” she said. “There were a couple of empty sardine tins on the ground.”
I lifted my knees and hugged them. “Have you ever seen a hobo?” I whispered.
“I saw one riding on top of a train once,” she said.
We didn’t speak for a few minutes. The air felt damp inside the cave. I wondered if the hobo might come back. Virgie swatted at a spider just above my head. I said Gramma might need my help with something and crawled out of the cave. I started fast-walking to the street toward Gramma’s house. Virgie zoomed past me on the bike, raising a wake of dirt behind her.
For the next two days, I helped Gramma in the garden. We picked young cucumbers to make pickles. I stood on an overturned laundry wash tub to reach the kitchen sink where I washed the “pre-pickles” (my own term) in warm water with a soft brush. Gramma scalded a dozen glass jars and set them upside down on a clean kitchen towel. The brine mixture simmered on the stove. The aroma of the salty, spicy brew filled the kitchen.
While the pickles cooled, we ate a quick lunch and went into the living room to listen to Gramma’s favorite gospel hour on the radio in the living room. “Hand me one of those funeral home fans on the little table by the door,” she said, lowering her body slowly onto the sofa to rest. Gramma swatted the air around her face and neck. I helped her position her feet onto a small pillow.
“Gramma,” I said softly, hoping to get an answer before she fell asleep. “The little white Bible on the table with the fans – it’s just like the one Grampa had at the funeral.”
“It’s a New Testament. When they closed the casket to go to the cemetery, Mrs. Maddox gave it to me,” Gramma said. Her words were slipping out as she drifted off to sleep. “It was the last thing my darling touched on this earth.”
I sat on the front porch, “watching the grass grow,” as Dad said when he was really deep in thought. The bicycle episode haunted me. I did not hesitate for a second when Virgie asked if I wanted to ride her Schwinn Excelsior. I did not hear my father’s voice call a shrill warning in my head. Instead, I heard him repeat softly, “If you tell a lie, I will know it.”
How could he recognize untruth in my voice? Was an adult ear able to pick up a different sound wave in a lie? Was it one of the powers parents developed? Finally, I settled on a strategy. Dad’s admonition referred to having to pay for repairs. Therefore, if he asked, “Did you ride someone else’s bike?” he was really asking for information about any damage I caused. Therefore, a negative answer was mostly truthful. I would have to tell Virgie my strategy, in case Dad asked her about the bike.
On Thursday, Virgie and I walked to town. I had about forty cents We walked down Main Street past a bank and a few shops. We had enough money between us for movie tickets and a pop, but the movie posters outside the little theatre did not excite us, and the matinee had already started, so we walked on.
“I’m hungry,” Virgie said. “Do you like grapes?”
“Sure.”
“Follow me.” Virgie was master of her little world.
Leaving Main Street, there were no sidewalks. I followed Virgie into an alley and slowed as we approached a tall wire fence loaded with grape vines. Virgie pointed to the wall of leaves that hid the owner’s house. “Don’t bother trying to pinch any of Mr. Moulter’s grapes, if he’s around. Not even if they are lying on the ground,” she whispered.
I flashed a fearful face and Virgie smiled. “Worth his temper if he catches you. Sweet and round, just like Mrs. Moulter. She’ll give you a handful if the old crank isn’t around.”
Virgie crouched low and snatched a small stem of nearly black grapes and handed them to me. “Try one.”
“Without asking?”
“His truck is gone.”
“Let’s ask Mrs. Moulter, then,” I suggested.
Virgie continued picking single grapes and filling her mouth. She smiled through purple teeth. “Don’t worry so much. City people are such ‘fraidy cats. Take some more.”
She offered me a grape. I shook my head. Virgie shrugged and was about to pop it in her mouth when I reached out and flicked it to the ground. “There was a bug on that one,” I said. ’Fraidy cats don’t last long in a big city, I thought. “I better get back. Gramma wants help clearing out Granpa’s clothes and boots,” I said, glad for an excuse that was actually the truth.
Virgie grabbed a last stem of grapes and we walked on. We stopped at an empty lot to see a blue pyramid rising from the ground. “What is that?” I asked.
Virgie squinted at a tent rising on its center pole. The men were inside and it looked as if the tent was acting on its own. “They’re putting up a revival tent,” she said. She ran across the grass toward the tent. I followed.
A man walked out of the tent and looked it over. He smiled at us. “Afternoon, ladies. We are bringing the Holy Truth of the Gospel to this tent tomorrow evening.” He pulled a folded paper from his back pocket and handed it to me. “Bring your whole family,” he said. “I’m Brother Preston Pierce,” he added.
Virgie turned to me and nodded. I read her lips: “Told you!”
The preacher turned his focus and his smile to me. “Ever been to a tent revival meeting?” he asked.
“She’s from Kansas City,” Virgie said.
“I see,” the preacher said. He nodded slowly, meaning he understood the disadvantages in a big city.
Another man walked toward us from a second pickup. He handed us fliers advertising the event. “We’d sure appreciate it if you girls would help us spread the word about the meeting,” he said.
Brother Preston added, “If you do, I promise you’ll receive a blessing.”
Virgie accepted the fliers and pulled me away by my sleeve.
Mrs. Schwager was standing at the kitchen table when I entered Gramma’s kitchen. The ladies were folding clothes on the table and placing them in a big trunk with a curved lid. “There you are,” Gramma said to me. Mrs. Schwager turned and looked over the top of her glasses. “I came over to visit your granny and she put me to work” she said with a fake frown.
The ladies returned to their work of folding one of Grampa’s clothes. When Gramma held up an old work shirt to shake out the wrinkles, the sun light shone through it. “Lord have mercy, Rose,” Mrs. Schwager said. “How old is this shirt. I can see plumb through it.” She laughed and turned toward me again. “I got night gowns thicker than this shirt.”
“Nobody here wants to hear about your nighties,” Gramma said sorting through a pile of socks looking for matches and finding few. I joined in with no better luck. I became distracted by inserting my hand into a sock and making a puppet. The sock-mouth started singing the Banana Boat Song: “Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch!” both of the old ladies laughed so hard they had to sit down.
I heard the back screen-door creak open and then slap a couple of times before it was shut. Virgie rushed into the kitchen, breathing in gasps from running. She saw a flyer for the tent revival on the counter and whined, “You already told them?” I let the sock puppet speak for me: “Don’t worry. We are all going tomorrow night.” The puppet’s high, nasal voice got the ladies laughing again.
When we finished folding all the clothes, Gramma carefully placed Grampa’s shaving mug and brush in a little nest between two pairs of long johns and closed the trunk, evening had drifted down upon us. Virgie and I slid the trunk onto the front bedroom. I laid a quilt on top of it so Gramma would not have to see it and be reminded of what was in the trunk. Supper was a repeat of breakfast, eggs, fried potatoes, cold biscuits, and sliced Big Boy tomatoes.
We were all tired from the day’s work and play. The act of removing Grampa’s personal belongings felt like a final, final goodbye to Grampa. More than his funeral or even watching his casket covered with fists full of dirt, I felt a higher level of finality than in the previous days. I think we all did.
That night, Gramma asked me if I would like to sleep with her. In the bed were Grampa died. I did not want to, but could hurt her, either. Was this some old-fashioned ritual or was she just feeling lonelier with Grampa’s things gone from the bedroom? “Sure,” I said.
I grabbed my pajamas from under the pillow in the front bedroom and locked the front screen with the hook and eye latch. The wooden door, and most of the windows remained open. The afternoon breeze had settled in for the night, cool and easy, scented by the afternoon mowing along the road by county crews.
I entered the dark bedroom, met by the lingering scent of Grampa’s pipe tobacco. The linoleum floor felt cool on my bare feet. Gramma was in bed, holding the sheet back for me to enter. Gramma sniffed and blinked her eyes. I could see the tear trails on her cheeks. As I walked around the foot of the bed, one of the sheer white curtains fluttered and brushed my hand.
As soon as I put my head on the pillow and pulled the sheet up to my chin, the curtain on the window near the foot of the bed blew up. The sheers on the window beside the bed blew into the room also. The wind was coming from two directions? Then, a gust blew through the window at the foot of the bed. It lifted the curtain like a ship’s sail filling with a strong wind. The tail nearly touched the ceiling. The other curtain waved up and down weakly.
I wiggled close to Gramma. She took me in her arms and kissed my forehead. “You’re not afraid, are you darling?” she asked.
“No,” I said. I told the truth. I felt confused or unsettled but not afraid.
As I slipped into sleep, the curtains returned to an easy sway from the night breeze. “He’s gone, now.” Gramma whispered.
Friday morning, I slept late. When I awoke, newly washed clothes – some of them mine – flapped in the sun in front of the garden. I met the ladies on the front porch. They were drinking coffee, resting from the laundry work, and planning early supper together before going to the revival meeting. I could not resist running between the two lines of damp clothes, a gauntlet of waving cotton. The air smelled of borax and cabbage growing close by.
I dried the breakfast dishes as Gramma handed them to me. “What is a revival?” I asked.
“It’s like church, but not in church. There’s singing, preaching, and an altar call,” she said.
“Why is it in a tent?”
“A revival is a traveling worship. It goes from town to town. Sometimes they last a week and the families camp out in the woods or an open field. The best part is when there is a healing,” Gramma said.
She carried the dish pan to the back door and threw it out, barely missing Virgie just arriving on her bicycle. I threw my dish towel in a wad onto the table and ran past Gramma to see what Virgie had in mind for this day’s adventure.
“Look what Aunt Hilda is letting me carry to the revival,” she said pushing a small black book toward me. The edges of the thick paper cover were ragged around the edges. It was the tiniest book I had ever seen, only a few pages. The title on the cover was worn away.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s the Book of Psalms. Aunt Hilda’s father carried it in the war.” Virgie hesitated giving the book to me. She opened it carefully. “It’s in German. My great-grandfather was in the first war. His name was Otto. He had a different last name, but I don’t remember it.”
“Wow! This is really cool. Your aunt is letting you carry it to the meeting?”
“Of course,” she said. She slid the little book into the pocket of her pedal pushers. “Do you have a Bible to bring tonight?”
“Yes. I’m going to carry a white Testament.” Another lie. I had not thought of asking to carry it until that moment. What if I asked and Gramma said I could not bring it. I would have to bring it or Virgie would laugh at me for certain. I could pray for forgiveness at the meeting. Maybe get forgiveness for riding the bike, too. I would scrub my memory for other sins and get everything forgiven in one go.
We puttered around the neighborhood for the rest of the day. Virgie knew everyone and introduced me to Gramma’s neighbors. We walked to the dime store in town and bought a card of four hair barrettes to wear to the revival. I was starting to feel excited for the meeting.
The air was cool and the fading light left long shadows. The four of us walked in silence to the corner of the street. We met other people walking in the same direction. We followed them onto a mowed path across the grass. The tent was lit up with strings of light bulbs wrapped around the tent poles inside. Tiny light beams shot from holes in the tent canvas. Music greeted the old women and a few men as we entered. Three rows of metal folding chairs, separated by a narrow aisle, faced a low stage covered by a runner of once-red carpet.
My attention went to the right of the stage. On another piece of carpet set the smallest organ I had ever seen. A young woman wearing a floral print dress that touched the ground .
Never had I imagined such a small organ. The Magnus Electric Chord Organ stood on four skinny legs. An adult could easily pick up the whole instrument. There were fewer keys than a full-sized piano and an array of buttons on the left side. Pressing just one brought forth a chord of notes. The keyboard supplied the melody.
Here was the first miracle of the evening. Mom and Dad said they could not afford a piano and lessons for me. The Magnus Electric Chord Organ was the answer to my prayers. Small, surely cheap, and I could master the melody keys in an afternoon. I clutched the white Testament and asked Jesus to touch my father’s heart to buy one for me. In return, I promised the Savior I would play for his glory, not only hymns but popular songs of the day.
The ladies in the congregation waved their funeral home fans. The tent flaps, the only source of fresh air, were closed. The humidity rising from the grass was soon uncomfortable. Under my dress, my legs stuck to the seat of my metal chair. I made a squeaky sound when I lifted a leg to unstick it. The other leg remained pinned by thigh sweat. The only relief was when we stood to sing.
“Welcome, brothers and sisters. Praise the Lord. We are here to glorify God with praise, to share His Holy Word, and to lead those who are lost to salvation. My name is Brother Preston Pierce. The lady playing the organ is Rebecca Pierce, my beautiful and talented bride. Stand up, darlin’, and see all these beautiful children of God with us tonight.” Sister Rebecca made the Magnus look big when she stood next to it. “I’m taller than she is,” Virgie whispered. It was difficult to see her with everyone leaning to one side and then the other to get a better look at her.
When we rose to sing “Love Lifted Me,” I shook out the back of my dress to cool my thighs. I stepped carefully to the right, in front of an empty seat. There she was. Her right hand flittered over the keys in a rapid rendition of the song. She wore a head scarf that hid most of her profile. All I could see was the end of her upturned nose. When the song ended, Sister Rebecca drew out the notes of the last “love lifted me” and ended with a short arpeggio. She took my breath away.
The sermon began. It seemed to me unusually long. I was sticking to my chair again. Virgie did her best to use her fan to cool us both, but ended up dropping it so many times, her aunt took it away from us. Brother Preston raised his voice to top volume every few minutes, startling the drowsy to full wakefulness.
Finally, he invited anyone with a health problem to come to the front of the stage to be healed. He started us off singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” – acapella and without accompaniment. I stretched up on tiptoe. Sister Rebecca was not at her instrument. Brother Preston repeated his offer of healing as the singing started to fade. Then, he started us up again.
No one walked down the aisle between the two sections of chairs until one old woman appeared at the very back of the tent. She was a small woman, her back bent, and walking with the aid of a cane. She too one carful step after another. She wore a man’s raincoat and a floppy black hat that nearly covered her face. The congregation picked up the hymn, using the poor woman’s painful steps for our rhythm.
As she moved slowly, painfully down the center aisle, I saw the outline of her face in profile. The woman’s upturned nose looked familiar. I looked toward the organ that was not being played. The chair was empty. Was the old woman Sister Rebecca? It had to be her. A short woman with a turned-up nose was one thing, but there being no organ music could only mean the supplicant for healing was none other than Sister Rebecca. I looked around me at the faces of the adults. They stared toward the tent ceiling or rocked with closed eyes. I elbowed Virgie a couple of times, but she stepped away from me.
When the lame lady arrived at the altar, Brother Preston leaned down and spoke quietly to her. She shook her head every time he asked her to throw down the cane and walk on her own. “You will be healed only by your faith,” he erupted. People lifted their arms to Heaven and urged her to try to walk. Others kneeled in prayer, their faces squeezed to a grimace.
Finally, the woman lifted the cane above her head and threw it with all her might onto the grass. Brother Preston stepped off the platform and extended his arms to catch her if her faith faltered. The woman gestured that she wanted to try on her own. She took one awkward step and then another. She walked toward Brother Preston who kept backing up. Voices thanking God and encouraging the woman rose like wind.
Finally, the woman lifted her head. She looked up and cried, “Thank you, Jesus.” The congregation joined in with hallelujahs and praised Jesus. Virgie danced a little jig in the aisle. I wanted to shout, “It’s the preacher’s wife. The organ player. Can’t you see?” Mrs. Preston stood facing the congregation. She clasped her hands in front of her lowered face and prayed.
The audience became quiet when Brother Preston called their attention to another man stepping toward the platform. He told of chronic knee pain that was suddenly gone. A woman with a life-long stutter recited the first two lines of “Amazing Grace” without falter.
The service ended and we walked out of the tent to the organ playing a song I did not recognize. The crowd was moving forward, eager to leave the stale, hot air of the tent. No one spoke as we walked across the grass toward the road. Virgie was even silent. Wasn’t anyone going to say a word about what they had just seen?
After we said goodnight to Virgie and Mrs. Schwager, Gramma told me to get ready for bed. “Your mama and daddy will be here tomorrow, she reminded me. I asked to sleep on the couch. Gramma yawned and kissed my forehead before walking through the kitchen to her bedroom.
As I removed my dress, panic struck. The white Testament with the gold cross was not in my pocket. I shook the dress hard, but nothing fell from it. I checked my socks and shoes. I had lost the white Testament, the last thing my Gramma’s darling touched on this earth. I threw myself onto the couch and cried into the afghan. Was this punishment or riding Virgie’s bike? I prayed to Grampa, “Please help me find your white Testament.” Finally, exhausted, I accepted that Hell was my fate and slept.
Virgie saw me sitting on her aunt’s porch swing and tapped on the window. I motioned for her to come outside and to be quiet about it. She emerged with a cup of milky sweet coffee.
“Want some?” she asked, showing me her coffee.
“I lost it,” I said.
“Lost what?” she said before slurping more of her wake-up potion.
“The white Testament. It was in my dress pocket and now it is not. I have to get to the tent and look for it.”
She set her coffee on the porch railing. “Go around and get my bike. I’ll put on some shoes and join you. Hurry up.”
I did not hesitate. I did not consider that my good luck riding Virgie’s bike the first time meant nothing as to my luck this time. Especially feeling so frantic. Was I compounding my sin of the first ride? Could I tell Dad not one but two lies when he arrived in the afternoon? I shook my head to scatter such ‘fraidy cat thoughts, hopped on the Schwinn Excelsior and rode accident-free to the revival tent.
I found the grass trail we had walked on the night before. So, I thought. But there was no big canvas tent. The truck in the empty lot looked familiar. I waited for Virgie to catch up and take charge of the bike. My heart was pounding against my ribs. The lie I intended to tell Dad about riding the bike was kid stuff. I had lost a family treasure. Worse, it was the Word of God, or at least part of it. Gramma expected to be buried with that precious little book.
Virgie took the bicycle out of my hands and laid it on the ground. We approached the truck. It was loaded with the dark blue canvas tent. I was so happy to see the man who helped Brother Preston from the day before. I told him we lost something in the tent during the meeting and came to look for it.
“It was a little white book. I must have dropped it under my chair or in the grass on the way out,” I said.
“It was white, you say?” the man asked. “Was there a gold cross on the front of it?”
“Yes!” I sputtered.
“Do you have it?” Virgie asked.
“I gave it to the preacher. He has the other truck.”
“Where did he go?” Virgie asked.
“Can we get there by bicycle?” I added.
“He and his wife went on into town to check out of the hotel and get breakfast.”
“Do you think he’s still there?” I asked.
“He won’t leave town without me. And if he does, I can catch up to him in Ashton. That’s our next stop.”
Virgie spoke softly behind me. “You have to get to the hotel before they leave. Take the bike.”
I was out of breath when I got the hotel, even though it was no more than a few city blocks. Brother Preston was sitting in the dining room, drinking coffee. He looked up as I rushed in and smiled. He pulled a chair out from the table. “What happened to you?” he asked looking at my skinned elbow and dirt stained pants.
“The bike is fine,” I answered.
“What about you?”
“I tripped on the curb,” I replied. I had not realized my injury was visible. Brother Preston handed me an unused napkin to wipe the drop of blood on my elbow.
“How can I help?” he asked.
“Last night at the revival, I lost something. It did not belong to me and it was priceless. The man with the other truck said he gave it to you.”
I heard footsteps approaching the table. I assumed it was Virgie. When I turned, I saw the organist. She smiled at me. “How nice to see you again,” she said. They know that I know, I thought. I had to stand my ground and get the white Testament. If they wanted me to promise my silence in return for the book, I was prepared to give it.
“We do have it,” Sister Rebecca said. “We were just talking about how we could return it. There was no name in the book. Now, here you are. This is truly a blessing.”
“Blessing?” said Virgie stepping forward. “I’d say it’s a miracle.”
Sister Rebecca took the white Testament from her purse. She noticed my elbow and looked sympathetic.
We exchanged polite good-byes. When the Pierces walked out of the hotel, Virgie pulled on my shirt sleeve. “How’s the bike?” she asked.
“It is FINE. I was walking it across the street and tripped on the curb outside the hotel.”
We walked back to Gramma’s house with the Schwinn Excelsior between us.
I helped Gramma clean the house. I volunteered to dust the living room. As I dusted, my mind was busier than my hands.
Riding Virgie’s bike was wrong, both times. The second time was more wrong because it was a repeated sin. But, it was done to help Gramma, and the bicycle was not damaged either time. It was tempting to blame the organist and say her lie shocked me and made me drop the book. But even I did not believe that her sin (if it was a sin) could be subtracted from my three.
I felt Gramma behind me as I folded the afghan on the couch. I looked up and saw her smile when she looked at the little table by the door. “Nice work,” she said. “Tell me about how you found the white Testament. You were very brave to get it back for me. Is that how you scraped your elbow?”
I could not look at Gramma’s face. “Do I have to tell Dad about riding the bike? I did not even scratch it.”
She pulled me into a hug and said, “Technically, you should tell him, I guess. None of us is perfect. And I’m sure your dad has given into temptation once or twice.” Before releasing me from the hug and letting me breathe, Gramma whispered. “I’ll square it with your dad.”
I helped prepare lunch. We made a cold lunch, sandwiches and fruit salad, since we did not know when Mom and Dad would arrive. I set a jar of our pickles on the table. “Did you notice that little organ at the revival last night. It was so small, it must not be expensive. I’m thinking about bringing it up to Dad. What do you think?”
“It might be worth a mention,” she said.
“Did you notice that the lady in the black hat with the cane, the one who got healed, was the same lady playing the organ?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” she said with a smile. “That revival comes around every summer. Is that a car pulling up? Quick, run out to the garden and pick a couple of big tomatoes. Your dad loves fresh tomatoes.”
I tied on one of Gramma’s aprons and ran out the back door. I picked a couple of nice Big Boys and put them in the apron pockets.
Marcia Calhoun Forecki has had her story “The Window” published in ‘Grande Dame Literary’ in 2022. Wheel Man, a disability lit novel, will be released in June 2026 by Library Tales Publishing. She is a board member of Larksong Writers Place in Lincoln, NE.