He examined Roanoke's haircut. No way.

"So, ah, where do Ernie and Roger get their hair cut?"

"I do it."

"You do it?"

"Keep my barber tools in th' book room over there." Roanoke indicated the book room with a wave of his hand.

"Aha."

"Six bucks a pop," said Roanoke, laying the paper on the table. "Six bucks and fifteen minutes, that's my motto."

"Did you . . . ever cut hair for a living?"

"I cut hair for truckers. When I was haulin' sheet metal, I had a stopover in Concord twice a month; I set up in th' back room of a barbecue joint. They rolled in there from New York City, Des Moines, Iowa, Los Alamos, Calfornia, you name it, they lined up from here to yonder." Roanoke looked proud of this fact, installing a fresh cigarette behind his ear.

"You might say I've cut hair from sea t' shinin' sea."

"I'll be darned." Now what was he going to do? His egg biscuit began to petrify in his stomach.

"You'll have t' set out here, since I got t' watch th' register, but I'll take care of it for you. I didn't want t' say nothin', but I wondered when you was goin' to get it off your collar. I thought maybe that was your religion."

Father Tim laughed uneasily and clapped his hip. He'd paid for his biscuit with pocket change; maybe he'd left his wallet at home. Sometimes he did. He hoped he did.

"You can pay me anytime. I run a little tab for Roger 'n' Ernie."

Oh, well, how bad could it be? He didn't recall that Ernie or Roger looked too butchered; pretty normal, to tell the truth.

"Fine," he said. "Fifteen minutes?"

Roanoke dragged the battered stool from behind the cash register and set it by the front window.

"Couldn't we, ah, move the stool back a little?" He didn't want to be on display for every passing car and truck on the island.

"I need th' light," said Roanoke, squinting at his hair.

Though he'd spent considerable time at morning prayer in his study, he prayed again as he clambered onto the stool.

Roanoke brought a box from the book room, followed by Elmo the Book Cat. It was the first time he'd seen Elmo out in general society. The elderly, longhaired cat sat on the cement floor, flicked its tail, and stared at him, as Roanoke laid his barbering paraphernalia on the window seat.

"Here you go," said Roanoke, throwing a torn sheet around Father Tim's shoulders. The sheet smelled of fish. Maybe that was why the cat was staring at him.

"Back when I was drivin'," said Roanoke, leaning into his work, "I run thirty-seven states and two provinces of Canada. One time I was caught in a tornada, it blowed me over an embankment and totaled my truck, but I walked away without a scratch, which was th' closest I ever come to believin' in God."

Father Tim felt the scissors snipping away, saw the hair thump onto the cement. The cat watched, still flicking its tail.

"I hauled a lot of orange juice outa Florida in my time. If I was haulin' fresh, a load would run around fifty-five hundred gallons. Concentrate, that'd weigh in around forty-seven hundred." Snip, snip.

Barbering certainly loosened the tongue of the usually taciturn Roanoke; he'd turned into a regular jabbermouth. Come to think of it, Father Tim had noticed the same phenomenon in Fancy Skinner and Joe Ivey. Clearly, nonstop discourse was very closely related to messing with hair.

"I even hauled chocolate syrup outa Pennsylvania, a lot of chocolate comes outa Pennsylvania, but I never hauled poultry or anything livin', nossir, I wouldn't haul anything livin'."

"Good idea."

"I never got pulled but one time. Now, there's some drivers, they can be wild, they'll run their rigs hard as they can run 'em to git up th' next hill. Regulations say you cain't drive but ten hours a day, but cowboys, that's what we called 'em, they'll go up t' eighteen, twenty hours, drivin' illegal.

"Cowboys is only about two percent of th' drivers out there today, but they give th' rest of us a bad name, you know what I mean?"

"I do!"

Snip, thump. "I do a little roofin' now, a little house paintin', cut a little hair, a man can make a livin' if he's got ambition."

"I agree!"

"Got rid of my car, ride a bicycle now, it's amazin' how much money you can put back when you shuck a car."

"I'll bet."

"I was raised in a Christian home, but I fell away. See, my first wife run off with a travelin' preacher, I brought 'im home, give 'im a good, warm bed an' a hot meal, an' first thing you know, they hightailed it."

"Aha." So that was why Roanoke was never especially thrilled to see him; he'd been tarred with the same brush. He had a sudden, vivid recall of van Gogh's self-portrait in which he sported only one ear. Please, Lord . . .

Elmo yawned and lay down, without removing his gaze from the customer on the stool.

"Now, you take me, I never run around on my second wife, an' they was plenty of chances to do it. Lot lizards is what we called 'em, they'll pester a man nearly to death. But I stayed true to my wife an' I'm glad I did, because you never know what you'll pick up on th' road an' bring home to innocent people."

"Right."

"I never did pills, neither, nossir, th' strongest thing I ever done when I was drivin' was Sun-drop, it'll knock your block off if you ain't used to much caffeine in your system. You want a Sun-drop, we got 'em in th' cooler."

"That's OK, I don't believe so. Maybe another time." Boy howdy, this was an education and a half.

Thump, thump, snip.

"But things is changed. It'd bring a tear to a glass eye to hear what a owner-operator pays these days to run a big rig."

"How much?"

"More'n sixty cent a mile. You have to be tough to make a livin' with truckin'."

"I'll bet so."

"I'm goin' to clean your neck up now. How's our time runnin'?"

Father Tim looked at his watch. "You've got a little under one minute."

"We're goin' to bring you in right on th' dot," said Roanoke, flipping the switch on his electric shaver.

Cynthia waved from the porch. Jonathan and Barnabas were waiting at the gate.

"Look at me!" said the boy, jumping up and down.

"I'm looking. That's a new shirt!"

"And new pants!"

He opened the gate. "Where did those snappy new clothes come from, buddyroe?"

"UPS!"

"Dearest, where's your hair?" called his wife from the porch.

"In a Dumpster behind Ernie's! What do you think?"

"I love it!" she said, sitting down on the top step. "We've got a surprise for you!"

His wife was herself wearing something new and boggling. Red shorts, which were plenty short, a strapless white top, and espadrilles.

He scratched behind his dog's ears and fairly bounded up the steps.

His sermon was finished and walked through, thought for thought, precept upon precept. In the study, Jonathan had paced to the bookcase at his heels, then to the wall with the painting of the Roman Colosseum. Exhausted at last, Jonathan fell asleep on the rug, where Father Tim stepped over him without missing a beat.

The rest of the day lay ahead, shimmering like silk. They would swim in the ocean, they would go out to dinner in their new duds, and tomorrow they'd hear the organ raising its mighty voice to the timbers.

He felt as young as a curate, as bold as a lion.

"Having a little boy is different," said his wife, drying her hair after their frolic in the ocean. "We're going out to dinner and it's only five-thirty."

"Like a bunch of farmhands," he agreed, pulling on his brand-new shorts and golf shirt. One thing he could say about golf, which he'd never played and never would, he sure liked the shirts.

"I sketched Jonathan today," she said.

"Aha!"

"For the new Violet book. I think he'll weave into it beautifully, just what I've been needing to . . . round it out, I think."

He heard someone knocking, and Barnabas flew at once to the door, his bark as throaty as the bass of St. John's organ.

He zipped his shorts and padded down the hall barefoot, stunned to see Father Jack and Earlene peering through the screen.

Good Lord! He'd completely forgotten to tell Jack Ferguson they weren't going home to Mitford!

Beet-red with embarrassment, he let the eager but surprised couple into the living room, and braced himself for the inept explanations he'd be forced to deliver, not only to the Fergusons but to his wife.

Dadgummit, now Father Jack would have a story to tell on him, which would spread through the diocese like fleas in August.

"Welcome to Dove Cottage," he said, trying to mean it.

They had gone to Mona's and eaten fried perch, hard crabs, broiled shrimp, yellowfin tuna fresh off the boat, hush puppies, french fries, and buckets of coleslaw. They had slathered on tartar sauce and downed quarts of tea as sweet as syrup, then staggered home in the heat with Jonathan drugged and half asleep on Father Tim's back.

As they walked, Cynthia did her part to deliver after-dinner entertainment, loudly reciting a poem by someone named Rachel Field.

"If once you have slept on an island

You'll never be quite the same;

You may look as you looked the day before

And go by the same old name.

You may bustle about the street or shop;

You may sit at home and sew,

But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls

Wherever your feet may go."