“How can I leave now?” I looked away, not naming the sadness that tainted my daddy’s life. “You need me. Mama needs me. I need me…here.”
“We’ll do fine. Folks will help out like always. If I can, I’ll take my time leaving this earth. I’ll write every week and keep you up on things. Don’t want you to fret your time at seminary about home matters. Besides, Son, this isn’t about my life; it’s about yours.”
I was caught in a painful place. Daddy was the smartest man I’d ever known, and his advice came from a deep well of wisdom primed by hard life on this mountain. My mind struggled with the gift I was being given. Then, like always, I did what Daddy thought best.
? ? ?
In the fall of 1937 I came down off the mountain and rode a Greyhound bus for the first time. The bus took me to seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, riding across state lines on the Dixie Highway. Five hundred and eighteen miles separated me from the home I wouldn’t see for two years.
I lived at Miss Vader’s boardinghouse and cut her grass in exchange for meals. Walked to class on sidewalks bordered by trimmed green lawns. Seminary classes were free back then, and I worked a library job to pay for extras I’d need. Besides Bible studies taught in sixteen weekly lectures, I read the likes of James Joyce and Dostoyevsky, mixed with the wisdom of Misters Twain and Will Rogers.
Daddy sent news every week, and I didn’t borrow trouble when I read his words. I got plumb drunk on book learning is what I did—though I never lost my appreciation for a good joke. Every joke I heard reminded me of Daddy and Granddaddy’s penchant for humor to ease the hard.
Daddy waited for me to come home, then he died.
? ? ?
There were forty-one men from the state of North Carolina attending seminary the year I entered, and Henry Clayton was one of them. He had the spark of the Holy Spirit and sass about him that resonated in me. You’d have thought Henry and I were brothers the way we got on from the first. To the chagrin of our professors, we collected church jokes like ladies collect recipes or poems, and we learned the important key to good storytelling—add real people to the mix.
Henry’s eyes always sparkled extra when he had a new joke to share. “Eli, you hear what Reverend Brooks told his congregation last Sunday?” he asked when he caught up with me as I headed to class on Revelations.
“No, Henry, what?” I played along.
“He said, ‘Next week I’ll preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want you to read Mark 17.’”
“You don’t say.”
Henry delivered a joke like a pro. Straight-faced. He didn’t get ahead of himself.
“Well, next Sunday, when it came time to deliver his sermon, Brother Brooks stood stately in his pulpit and looked down on the faithful. He asked for a show of hands. ‘How many found time in their busy week to read Mark 17?’ Several hands shot up, and he said, ‘Well, the gospel of Mark has only sixteen chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon on lying.’”
At the punch line I already knew, Henry slapped his bony thigh and laughed that donkey laugh of his that got both of us in trouble more times than I care to admit. He’s now the longtime pastor at Reedy Branch Free Will Baptist in Winterville in eastern North Carolina, and we’ve stayed in touch.
We trade jokes and meet up at the annual convention at the end of September. In between, every few months, Henry sends me a box of brain food holding back issues of the New Yorker, Time, and Life, and in recent years, back issues of the full-color National Geographic. Henry cuts out the suggestive pictures, like the bare-breasted native women, in case Prudence looks at the magazines. She would have thrown them in the woodstove embers, given half a reason. I’m proud of the stack of them on my shelf. It’s a source of admitted pride for me, but I rationalize it this way: I believe the mystery of God’s great and varied world is captured nowhere better than on those glossy pages. If you don’t believe in God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, before you read National Geographic, you will after.
? ? ?
Prudence and I finish eating, and I pop the last slice of apple in my mouth and stand and stretch. I say, “Why don’t you take some apples for Miss Shaw’s welcome tomorrow? I think she’d appreciate the thought.” I push my chair under the table.
“Didn’t do it for the others,” Prudence states.
“Maybe a better start will mean better results. We’re running through teacher candidates faster than the law should allow. Second Corinthians 9:7 says, ‘Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give…”
Prudence quickly retreats to her room and slams the door before the next words grate against her selfish nature.
I raise my voice and finish the verse. “So let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
I have no choice but to give up but say before I turn away, “At least invite her to church so she can meet her neighbors.”
Prudence doesn’t answer.
? ? ?
Two days later, on Sunday, when the horizon turns pink with a new day, I head to church to start stone soup. An iron pot stays in the yard covered with a piece of plywood to keep out dirt and bugs during the week. I light the kindling under the pot, fill it with spring water, and throw in a smooth stone. Stone soup has been a weekly tradition here since my granddaddy’s days. Baines Creek Baptist Church feeds more than souls with an idea birthed five hundred years ago.
That tale involves a stranger who declares he could make soup from a stone. While the water boils and the stone cooks, he regales the villagers with tales of travel—much like a preacher regales his flock with the holy truth. When the stranger declares the soup ready, the people sample it and say it tastes like water! The stranger says, “We forgot the herbs, didn’t we? A sweet onion, perhaps?” The entertainment softens the crowd, and in the spirit of teamwork, the soup grows into something nourishing.
In the case of my little congregation, the recipe is simple: share what you can spare. Prudence no longer complains about the potatoes and onions I slice every Saturday night, nor does she offer to help. Others arrive at church and add wild mushrooms, a piece of venison, or ramp and chard. The soup simmers while I preach, and I start with a joke.
“My friends, many of you have asked me what’s the best way to get to heaven, and I am here today to remind you of the one, true answer.”
I pause for effect.
“Turn right and go straight.”
I get a few chuckles, a sprinkle of smiles, and some dull faces, Prudence among them.
When church is over and soup is eaten, bodies and souls drift away, satisfied. I stay behind to wash out the pot. I’ve taken off my jacket, rolled up my shirtsleeves, and am bent over scrubbing the insides when I hear a voice I don’t recognize.