On Sunday, Morgan kept her word. At the steps to the Sunday School room, she whispered, “Hide! Then run back to your house. Oakwood people either go to church or stay inside, so I don’t think anyone will see you. I’ll tell Mrs. Miller you feel smallpox coming on.”
She grinned to show me she was kidding.
I hid in the sanctuary—no one there except the person up in the front practicing hymns. When everyone was in Sunday School, I dashed outside and down Cole Street.
The field was a mass of bluebells, and luckily, the house still wasn’t locked. I flung myself on the rug by Midnight H. Cat and scooped her up. We rolled around together, all dizzy with love, until it was time for me to go back.
While I listened to the opening music, I watched Dad’s foot poking out from behind the pulpit. How long had it been since I waltzed around on that shoe? Slurpee hung backward in her pew, giving me two-finger waves until Dad stood up. I squeaked my shoes on the floor, but Dad was concentrating too hard to notice.
“Sorry the sanctuary is chilly today,” he said. “Love your neighbor next to you.” That made people chuckle. “Or”—he smiled—“make peace with them fast.”
I glanced shyly at Cousin Caroline and Morgan, and they both gave me good-neighbor grins, which gave me a warm spot in my stomach and almost made me forget the missing tooth gaps where Mom and Isabella should be.
Dad said, “We think of our hearts as pure and kind, which they often pretty much are. Until someone wounds us. Or until we remember hard things and pain bubbles up.”
I could hear people breathing as if their old wounds were hurting.
“This church’s struggles of today go back to its yesterdays,” Dad said. “Sometimes we choose anger rather than pain.”
He was talking about Simon. Throwing that rock.
“Luckily . . .” Dad paused. “Luckily, there are gifts in suffering.”
Some people nodded. Some looked grumpy as grit.
“Wounds can make us softer,” Dad said. “After all, chickens eat spiders and other insects and turn them into golden sunrise yolks.”
My dad used to preach about Martin Luther King and Gandhi. Now he was preaching about egg yolks?
Dad finished by saying it was hard to be pure of heart if our inner lives were a jumble of grudges. When we stood up, Great-aunt Dorcas was supposed to say, “Peace be with you,” but I heard her say that she hoped Dad had the good sense not to do “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
At the benediction Dad raised his arms. “Life is short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind.”
It’s terrible when your dad is perfect.
On the way home I reported what Great-aunt Dorcas had said about “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
“Those have been fighting words around here—and for centuries, for our ancestors.” Cousin Caroline pointed her arm like a sword. “You owe everything to your ruler!”
Morgan shook her fist. “You owe everything to God. The Bible says, ‘Love your enemies.’”
I was watching another play.
Cousin Caroline frowned. “How can you refuse to fight your country’s enemies? Be a patriot!”
“No,” Morgan hollered. “Be a peacemaker!”
“During World War One, the discussion got mean,” Cousin Caroline said. “The church burned. People still argue over whether it was a fireworks accident or dynamite.”
Poor Dad.
“At least tar and feathers are out of fashion.” Cousin Caroline winked at me in the mirror. “Try not to worry about your dad. He’s got pretty big shoulders.”
That afternoon I explained on the phone to Mom about the church sign. “Are you getting time to write your journal article?” I asked.
“Definitely,” she said. “I’ve been doing more research about Kansas pioneers. People wrote that in those dry years the air seemed thirsty and the wind seemed to shrivel the skin. People needed their relatives to send them supplies by train. Only the most stubborn stuck it out.”
So Dad was born to stubborn ancestors. “It’s May now,” I said.
She laughed and said, “Yes, Anna. Stampeding buffaloes wouldn’t make me forget your birthday.”
That meant Grandpa was truly getting better and Mom would soon be back. Right then I felt a snap, click, rattle of joy as powerful as the Kansas wind.