A Baby For The Minister

The idea of eating in the dirty kitchen wasn’t very appealing, so she decided to take her sandwich outside. She could eat it while she checked out the rest of the farm.

She hadn’t realized how musty the house smelled until she stepped out the door into the fresh air. A brisk wind was blowing the last of the gray clouds away, and the sky arching over the farmyard was a sweet eggshell blue.

As she picked her way carefully through the overgrown grass, she startled five striped chickens, who squawked and flapped away. When she reached the barn, the shaggy goat with the patchy brown-and-black fur trotted up to his fence and bleated at her.

She stuck out a hesitant finger to stroke his satiny nose. He tipped up a bearded chin and nibbled lightly on her thumb before bleating again. Natalie peered into his pen. His water trough was half-full, but a battered tin pan sat empty by the fence.

“Are you hungry?” The goat made his sad noise again, so she offered him the last bite of her sandwich. He gobbled it up and looked at her expectantly.

He was hungry. Adam had mentioned some feed. Maybe it was in the barn. She pulled open the rough door and looked in. The building had a dirt floor and smelled damp. Natalie shuddered.

There was a second half-opened door to her right, and she thought she could see some yellow bags stacked inside a small room. She took a step in that direction.

Something scrabbled in the depths of the closet-like space, and she froze.

Please, Lord, don’t let that be a rat. I can’t handle a rat right now, not after the day I’ve had. I just can’t.

The goat cried out again, and she bit her lip. The poor thing was starving. Rat or not, she was going to have to get to that feed. Gathering her courage, she crossed the dirt floor and pulled the door to the room fully open.

Something flew up toward her face in a flurry of feathers and dust. She cried out and jumped backward, stumbling over a couple of rusty paint cans. She caught herself against a wooden post just before she fell, and she heard her dress rip as the fabric snagged on a protruding nail.

The escaping hen clucked loudly as it scurried out into the sunshine. Natalie stayed where she was, breathing hard and waiting for her hammering heart to slow down.

She was all right. It was just a chicken. She hadn’t fallen. The baby was fine.

“Bleaaah!”

The loud noise sounded right beside her, and she yelped in alarm. Rufus was standing in the cobweb-filled barn, looking at her with his weird golden eyes. How had he gotten out of his pen so fast?

“Bleaaah,” he bleated at her again.

“Shoo, Rufus. Go away!” The goat just tilted his head and watched her.

If she had some feed, she might be able to lure him back into his pen, but she really didn’t want to go into that spooky room. No telling what else was hiding in there. The chicken sure had been in a hurry to get out.

The feelings she’d been fighting off for hours swelled over her like a tidal wave. She was tired, her back hurt and she’d just ripped a hole in the only nice maternity dress she owned.

She was cornered in a spidery barn with a goat and scary chickens, and somehow she had to figure out how to take care of herself and these animals for the next two weeks on the forty dollars she had in her purse. And if the baby came early, she’d have to take care of him, too.

All by herself.

There was no way she could do this.

Natalie felt the sobs start from somewhere deep down, and this time she didn’t have enough strength to stop them. She leaned against the splintery post and cried her heart out while Rufus nibbled on the hem of her ruined dress.

* * *

The midday sun streamed through the stained glass windows of the Pine Valley Community Church sanctuary as the pianist began the last verse of the morning’s closing hymn. Jacob sang along with his congregation, profoundly relieved to see the worship hour come to a close.

He was anxious to get out to Lark Hill and check on Natalie Davis.

He’d spent a restless night imagining every kind of disaster that could possibly happen to a pregnant woman out at the old Larkey farm. It had turned out to be an impressive list. He never should have left Natalie out there alone, no matter what she said.

After pronouncing the benediction, he posted himself in his usual spot at the church entryway, prepared to offer handshakes and hugs as his church family filed past him. Today the line moved a lot more quickly than it usually did. Nobody seemed to want to linger and chat, and normally friendly people were having a hard time meeting his eyes. In fact, he noticed that several members slipped out the side door without speaking to him at all.

Something was definitely up with his little flock. But what?

He hadn’t had a chance to check in with Arlene before the service, so he’d have to wait to find out. Arlene would know what was going on. She always did.

The arrival of four-year-old Katie Barker was a welcome distraction. Completely unaffected by the tension around her, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek as soon as he crouched down within her range.

“This is for you, Pastor,” she announced, handing him a dampish mound of green clay with various lumps sticking out if it. “I made it in Sunday school. It’s the turtle from Noah’s ark.”

“I can see that,” Jacob fibbed with a smile. “Wow. And you made it for me?”

“No, I made it for my daddy, but one of its legs fell off and Tommy Anderson stepped on it and smushed it before I could stick it back on. I’m going to make Daddy a better turtle, and you can have this one. Because you’re nobody’s daddy, and a three-legged turtle is better than no turtle at all.”

The few church members still within earshot chuckled, and Katie’s mother flushed bright pink. Jacob offered the flustered woman a reassuring smile before turning his attention back to the little girl.

“That’s true, Katie-bug. I don’t have anybody to make me turtles, so I’m extra glad to have this one. I’ll put it in my office so I can see it every day.” He’d add it to the collection of Vacation Bible School crafts and Sunday school projects that Arlene was always pestering him to throw away.

His secretary was wasting her breath because he planned to hang on to every lopsided Popsicle stick and faded scrap of construction paper on that shelf. Katie Barker had summed up why with the artless truthfulness of a preschooler. Three-legged turtles were better than no turtles at all.

Arlene, as usual, had stationed herself at the tail end of the line. She didn’t bother to comment on his sermon. She never did. “When you preach a bad one, I’ll let you know,” she’d told him once.

He believed her.

“That piano needs tuning,” his secretary informed him, riffling through her black purse for her car keys. “I’ll set it up tomorrow morning.” She scanned Jacob’s face with narrowed eyes. “You don’t look so well. I sure hope you haven’t caught that flu Good Shepherd’s passing around.” She snorted. “Isn’t that just like those folks? You go do them a favor, and what do they give you in return? Germs!”

Jacob rolled his eyes. Pine Valley Community and Good Shepherd had a long-standing, mostly amicable rivalry that had started on the softball field and which Arlene tended to take a little too seriously. And she wasn’t the only one in his congregation who felt that way. Maybe it was time for him to give his We’re All on the Same Team sermon.

Again.

“I’m fine, Arlene. Just tired. Listen, how much money do we have in our benevolence fund right now?”

“I don’t know exactly.” The concern in Arlene’s expression shifted to suspicion. “I’d have to check. Jacob, this doesn’t have anything to do with what happened at that wedding yesterday, does it? Because that poor bride is Good Shepherd’s problem, not ours.”

“I don’t think she’s a member there, and anyway, I was the minister present when everything went to pieces. I feel responsible for her.”

“Well, you shouldn’t.” His secretary glanced warily in the direction of the door. She waited until the last members of the congregation were safely out of earshot before speaking again. “And I’ll tell you this—after missing that meeting yesterday, the very last thing you need to do is start doling out our benevolence money to somebody who isn’t even a member of our church.”

“Was Digby that upset?”

“He wasn’t upset at all, which was far worse, I can assure you. He spent the entire meeting hounding the church board about that fellowship hall. He’s won over three more of the members. You know what that means.”

Jacob’s heart sank. He knew, all right. If it came to the floor now, the fellowship hall approval was only one vote shy of going through.

“And that’s not the half of it. Digby brought up that nephew of his at least four times. He’s graduated from seminary now, and what’s worse, he’s gotten married! Digby was passing the wedding photos all around the conference table.”