"You got th' wrong end of th' stick, if you ask me, but I appreciate it." Ernie opened the book, squinted at a random page, and read aloud, slowly: "On his morning rounds th' Master

Goes to learn how all things fare;

Searches pasture after pasture,

Sheep and cattle eyes with care;

And, for silence or for talk,

He hath comrades in his walk;

Four dogs, each pair of different breed,

Distinguished two for scent, and two for speed.

"See a hare before him started!

-Off they fly in earnest chase;

Every dog is eager-hearted,

All th' four are in th' race. . . ."

Ernie looked up, grinning. "Got a good bit of action to it."

As he left the tackle shop, he glanced in the front window, pleased to see the proprietor giving rapt attention to the little book of pastoral ruminations.

Janette Tolson wept all the way across the bridge to the hospital fourteen miles away. He sat with her through the admission to the psychiatric floor, explaining to the clerk there was no insurance, and giving his word the bill would be taken care of. How, he didn't know; that would be God's job. He waited until her doctor arrived and she was settled in a shared room.

Reluctantly, she let go of his hand as he left. "Jonathan . . ."

"Don't worry," he said.

He clung to Cynthia before leaving for the vestry meeting at St. John's.

Oh, the blessed softness of a wife in a hard world . . .

He kissed her, his hands at her waist. Even with all the bike riding, there was a pleasant little roll there.

He winked. "See you later, Tubs."

She jerked away from him, glaring.

No doubt about it, he thought as he raced for the door, he had stepped over his wife's yellow line.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The Spark in the Flax The rain began in the night, drumming steadily on the red roof of Dove Cottage.

At six a.m., he tried to think of one good reason to spend a full day at the church office, but couldn't. Didn't clergy usually take two days every single week, and hadn't he taken only one since arriving? He would go in after lunch, that was the ticket.

"Wonderful, darling, you can help me feed Jonathan!" His wife had a positively wicked gleam in her eye.

"No! I don't like it!" Jonathan shook his head vigorously when a bowl of cereal was set before him.

Cynthia proffered buttered toast.

"No!" said Jonathan. "No toast!"

"What if we put jelly on it?" asked Father Tim.

"I've tried that," she said. "It doesn't work. We go through this every morning while you trot happily down the street, whistling." She sighed. "I don't know how to make children eat things they don't like."

"Hasn't he given you any clues?"

"I've tried oatmeal, Froot Loops, buttered grits, bacon, not to mention eggs scrambled and boiled. Nothing will do. He always ends up in tears with crackers and cheese."

"We could call someone," he said brightly, "and ask what he likes for breakfast."

"Who could we call?"

"Let's see. Jean Ballenger! She knows the family!" What a great solution. He was a regular Sherlock.

"I got to pee-pee," said Jonathan.

"You just pee-pee'd," said Cynthia, looking frazzled.

Jonathan tumbled from the chair and headed toward the bathroom at a trot.

"Your turn to go with him," said his wife. "And please put the seat down afterward."

"I have no idea!" exclaimed Jean when he rang her small cottage next to the library. "I never saw anyone eat anything while I was at the Tolsons'."

After the useless phone inquiry, Cynthia pulled him into the study. "I don't suppose Jean would like to keep Jonathan for a little while?"

"Jean Ballenger? I can't imagine such a thing!" Jean, a fastidious spinster with crocheted antimacassars on her armchairs, would hardly be up for tending a strong-willed three-year-old.

"What are we going to do?" asked Cynthia. "I think he's adorable, truly he is. But he's running me ragged. I'm too old for this!"

"I'll be here 'til one o'clock. Go to your drawing board, relax, everything is under control."

So why did she peer at him like that, with one eyebrow up and one down?

"Eureka!" he shouted, running along the hall to her studio. "I've found it!"

"Found what?" she asked, not looking up from a watercolor of Violet under a yellow and blue beach umbrella.

"What he likes for breakfast!" He was positively triumphant; he might have located the very Grail.

"I'll never guess, so tell me." She couldn't help grinning at her husband, who looked as if he'd been run through a food processor.

"Guess!" he insisted, playing the mean trick Emma always played on him.

"M&M's?"

"Not even close. Two more."

"Reese's peanut butter cups! That would certainly be my preference for breakfast every morning!"

"Cynthia . . ."

"All right, I'm not trying. Here goes, and I'm quite serious this time." She looked out the window. She curled a strand of hair around one finger. She sighed.

"I don't have a clue," she said.

"Spaghetti."

"No."

"Yes!"

"Al dente, I presume."

"A little respect, please. I've just made an important discovery here."

"Yes, dear, and thank you. Plain or with marinara?"

"With butter. No fork, no spoon. Just dump it in a bowl and set it in front of him. Of course, you'll have to bathe him after it's all over."

"Bathe him?" There went that eyebrow again.

"All right, I'll bathe him. But just this once."

Why did children keep turning up on his doorstep? Not that he was complaining, but wasn't it odd that he'd lived a full six decades with hardly a youngster in his life except those he encountered in Sunday School? But then, look what it had gained him, after all-Dooley Barlowe. One of the greatest gifts, most of the time, that had ever "come down from the Father of lights," as St. James had put it.

In any case, this was a picnic compared to Father Tracey, who, with his good wife, had adopted fourteen children. Fourteen! It boggled the mind. And then there was Father Moultrie, who had passed into legend, though still living as far he knew. This good fellow had collected twenty-one children of various ages and backgrounds and had managed, so it was said, to keep the lot in good order, though the addition he built to his suburban home had literally fallen down one night after a communal pillow fight; thanks be to God no one was badly hurt.

"And darling . . . ," said his smiling wife as he turned to leave the room.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for mopping the floor under his chair when you've finished."

"No problem," he said, trying to mean it.