Out to Canaan Read Online Free Page A

butterfly on a pin. “Yes! Black . . . and blue and . . . the tiniest bit of yellow.”
    â€œMy old school colors,” he said.
    â€œBut what happened?” He never heard such tsk ing and gasping.
    â€œT.D.A.,” he replied.
    â€œThe Dreaded Armoire? What do you mean?”
    â€œI mean that I got up in the middle of the night, in the dark, and went out to the landing and opened the windows to give Barnabas a cool breeze. As I careened through the bedroom on my way to the bathroom, I slammed into the blasted thing.”
    â€œOh, no! Oh, heavens. What can I do? And tomorrow’s Sunday!”
    â€œSpousal abuse,” he muttered. “In today’s TV news climate, my congregation will pick up on it immediately.”
    â€œTimothy, dearest, I’m so sorry. I’ll get something for you, I don’t know what, but something. Just stay right there and don’t move.”
    She put on her slippers and robe and flew downstairs, Barnabas barking at her heels.
    T.D.A. might stand for “The Dreaded Armoire” as far as his wife was concerned. As far as he was concerned, it stood for something else entirely.

CHAPTER TWO
    Step by Step
    He was missing her.
    How many times had he gone to the phone to call, only to realize she wasn’t there to answer?
    When Sadie Baxter died last year at the age of ninety, he felt the very rug yanked from under him. She’d been family to him, and a companionable friend; his sister in Christ, and favorite parishioner. In addition, she was Dooley’s benefactor and, for more than half a century, the most generous donor in the parish. Not only had she given Hope House, the new five-million-dollar nursing home at the top of Old Church Lane, she had faithfully kept a roof on Lord’s Chapel while her own roof went begging.
    Sadie Baxter was warbling with the angels, he thought, chuckling at the image. But not because of the money she’d given, no, indeed. Good works, the Scriptures plainly stated, were no passport to heaven. “For by grace are you saved through faith,” Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, “and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works, lest any man should boast.”
    The issue of works versus grace was about as popular as the issueof sin. Nonetheless, he was set to preach on Paul’s remarks, and soon. The whole works ideology was as insidious as so many termites going after the stairs to the altar.
    Emma blew in, literally. As she opened the office door, a gust of cold spring wind snatched it from her hand and sent it crashing against the wall.
    â€œLord have mercy!” she shouted, trying to snatch it back against a gale that sent his papers flying. She slammed the door and stood panting in front of it, her glasses crooked on her nose.
    â€œHave you ever ?” she demanded.
    â€œEver what?”
    â€œSeen a winter that lasted nine months goin’ on ten? I said, Harold, why don’t we move to Florida? I never thought I’d live to hear such words come out of my mouth.”
    â€œAnd what did Harold say?” he asked, trying to reassemble his papers.
    â€œYou know Baptists,” she replied, hanging up her coat. “They don’t move to Florida; they don’t want to be warm! They want to freeze to death on th’ way to prayer meetin’ and shoot right up to th’ pearly gates and get it over with.”
    The Genghis Khan of church secretaries wagged her finger at him. “It’s enough to make me go back to bein’ Episcopalian.”
    â€œWhat’s Harold done now?”
    â€œMade Snickers sleep in the garage. Can you believe it? Country people don’t like dogs in the house, you know.”
    â€œI thought Snickers was sleeping in the house.”
    â€œHe was, ’til he ate a steak off Harold’s plate.”
    â€œAha.”
    â€œDown th’ hatch, neat as a pin. But then, guess