"Aha."

Sam stirred cream into his coffee, chuckling. "Ernie likes to say that yellow line saved their marriage."

Marion looked at the kitchen clock. "Oh, my! We'd better show you how your coffers are stocked, and get a move on!"

She took off her apron and tucked it in her handbag, then opened the refrigerator door as if raising a curtain on a stage.

"Half a low-fat ham, a baked chicken, and three loaves of Ralph Gaskell's good whole wheat . . . Lovey Hackett's bread-and-butter pickles, she's very proud of her pickles, it's her great aunt's recipe . . . then there's juice and eggs and butter, to get you started, the eggs are free-range from Marshall and Penny Duncan-he's Sam's junior warden.

"And last but not least . . ."-Marion indicated a large container on the bottom shelf-"Marjorie Lamb's apple spice cake. It's won an award at our little fair every year for ten years!"

Father Tim groaned inwardly. The endless temptations of the mortal flesh . . .

"What a generous parish you are, and God bless you for it!"

"We've always tried to spoil our priests," said Marion, smiling. "But not all of them deserved it."

Sam blinked his blue eyes. "Now, Marion, good gracious . . ."

"Just being frank," Marion said pleasantly.

"Dearest, I think we should be frank, too."

"In, ah, what way?" inquired Father Tim.

"About your diabetes. My husband likes to think that St. Paul's controversial thorn was, without doubt, diabetes."

"Oh, dear!" said Marion. "That means . . ."

"What that generally means is, I can't eat all the cakes and pies and so on that most folks like to feed a priest."

"But I can!" crowed his wife.

"It helps to get the word out early," he said, feeling foolish. "Cuts down on hurt feelings when . . ."

Sam nodded sympathetically. "Oh, we understand, Father, and we'll pass it on. Well, we ought to be pushing off, Marion. We've kept these good people far too long."

"Everybody's having a fit to get a look at you," Marion said proudly. "We hope you'll rest up this afternoon, and we'll come for you at six. It looks like we've got lovely weather on our side for the luau."

"Is the, ah, grass skirt deal still on?" asked Father Tim.

Marion laughed. "We nixed that. We didn't want to run you off before you get started!"

"Well done! And how do we get to St. John's? I'm longing to have a look."

"Good gracious alive!" said Sam, digging in his pockets. "I nearly forgot, I've got a key here for you."

He fetched out the key and handed it over. "Go out to the front gate, take a left, and two blocks straight ahead. You can't miss it. Oh, and Father, there are a couple of envelopes on the table in your sitting room. From two of our . . . most outspoken parishioners. They wanted to get to you before anyone else does . . ."-Sam cleared his throat-"if you understand."

"Oh, I do," he said.

"If I were you, Father," Marion warned, "I'd visit the church and take a nice nap before you go reading those letters. To put it plainly, they're all about bickering. We hate to tell you, but our little church has been bickering about everything from the prayer book to the pew bulletins for months on end. I've heard enough bickering to last a lifetime!"

They walked out to the porch, into the shimmering light. For mountain people accustomed to trees, it seemed the world had become nothing but a vast blue sky, across which cumulus clouds sailed with sovereign dignity.

"Thank you a thousand times for all you've done for us," Cynthia said.

"It's our privilege and delight. You know, we Whitecappers aren't much on hugging, but I think you could both use one!"

Sam and Marion hugged them and they hugged back, grateful.

The senior warden looked fondly at his new priest. "We'll help you all we can, Father, you can count on it."

He had the feeling that he would, indeed, be counting on it.

His wife notwithstanding, he had eagerly obeyed only a few people in his life-his mother, most of his bishops, Miss Sadie, and Louella. He thought Marion Fieldwalker might be a very good one to mind, so he lay down with Cynthia and took a nap, feeling the warmth of the sun through the large window, loving the clean smell of the softly worn matelasse spread, and thanking God.

Setting off to his new church with his good dog made him feel reborn. But he wouldn't go another step before he toured the garden, enclosed by a picket fence with rear and front gates leading to the streets.

Along the pickets to the right of the porch, a stout grove of cannas and a stand of oleander . . .

By the front gate, roses gone out of bloom, but doing nicely, and on the fence, trumpet vine. Several trees of some sort, enough for a good bit of shade, and over there, a profusion of lacecap hydrangea . . .

He walked around to the side of the house, where petunias and verbena encircled a sundial, and trotted to the backyard. An oval herb garden, enclosed by smaller pickets, a bird feeder hanging by the back steps . . .

He made a quick calculation regarding the grass. Twenty minutes, max, with the push mower Sam had sharpened, oiled, and left in the storage shed.

A light breeze stole off the water, and the purity of the storm-cleansed air was tonic, invigorating. He thought he heard someone whistling as he went out the rear gate, and was amazed to find it was himself.

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay . . .

They cantered along the narrow lane, spying the much-talked-about street sign at the corner of the high fence. The fence was thickly massed with flowering vines and overhung by trees he couldn't identify. It was wonderful to see things he couldn't identify-why hadn't he been more of a traveler in his life, why had he clung to Mitford like moss to a log, denying himself the singular pleasures of the unfamiliar?

He had the odd sense he was being watched. He stopped in the middle of the street and looked around. Not a bicycle, not a car, not a soul, only a gull swooping above them. They might have been dropped into Eden, as lone as Adam.

Ernie's and Mona's, he discovered, sat close to the street, with a dozen or so vehicles parallel-parked in front. Cars and pickups lined the side of the road.

Mona's Cafe

Three Square Meals

Six Days A Week

Closed Sunday

Ernie's Books, Bait & Tackle

Six 'Til Six

NO SUNDAYS.

Twelve-thirty, according to his watch, and more than five whole hours of freedom lying ahead. Hallelujah!

He tied the red leash to a bench, and Barnabas crawled under it, panting.

As the screen door slapped behind him, he saw the painted yellow line running from front to back of the center hallway. A sign on an easel displayed two arrows-one pointed left to Mona's, one pointed right to Ernie's.

He read the handwritten message posted next to the cafe's screen door: Don't even think about cussing in here.

Should he follow the seductive aromas wafting from Mona's kitchen, or buy a Whitecap Reader and see what was what?

He hooked a right, where the bait and tackle shop had posted its own message by the door: A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

-Samuel Johnson "What can I do for you?" A large, genial-looking man in a ball cap sat behind the cash register.

"Looking for a copy of the Whitecap Reader," Father Tim said, taking change from his pocket.

"We prob'ly got one around here somewhere. You wouldn't want to pay good money today since a new one comes out Monday. Roanoke, we got a paper over there?"

Roanoke looked up, squinting. "Junior's got it, he took it to th' toilet with 'im."

"That's OK," said Father Tim. "I'll pay for one. How much?"

"Fifty cents. You can get it out of the rack at th' door."

He doled out two quarters.

"We thank you. This your first time on Whitecap?"

"My wife and I just moved here."

"Well, now!" The man extended a large hand across the counter. "Ernie Fulcher. I run this joint."

"Tim Kavanagh."

"What business're you in?"

"New priest at St. John's."

"I never set eyes on th' old one," said Ernie. "I think Roanoke ran into 'im a time or two."

Roanoke nodded, unsmiling. He thought Roanoke's weathered, wrinkled face resembled an apple that had lain too long in the sun.

"Well, thanks. See you again."

"Right. Stop in anytime. You fish?"

"Not much."

"Need any shrimp, finger mullet, squid, bloodworms, chum . . . let me know."

"I'll do it."

"Plus we're th' UPS station for th' whole island, not to mention we rent crutches-"

"Good, good."

"And loan out jigsaws, no charge."

"I'd like to look at your books sometime."

Ernie jerked his thumb toward a room with a handprinted sign over the open door: Books, Books and More Books. "I got a deal on right now-buy five, get one free."

"Aha."

"Can't beat that."

"Probably not. Well, see you around."

He was unhooking the leash from the bench leg as two men walked out of Mona's, smelling of fried fish.