Sip of Cool Water

the grands

"As cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a far country." (Proverbs 25:25)

I heard it through the grapevine that A Chancellor Ferry Tale made it on the 2018-2019 Book Quest reading list at a Christian elementary school in Indiana - a sip of cool water to my weary, book-writing soul.

Today's prayer for you, beloved: may the Lord bring good news to your sweet soul.

~

A little sip from A Chancellor Ferry Tale:

“Mamaw, what does a missionary in India have to do with a bug in Alabama?” asked Elizabeth.

“I’m glad you asked, sugar. The story’s told that on a hot July day in the little town of Childersburg…”

Norman Hyde climbed the whitewashed siding onto a windowsill beside the Estey pump organ  - his regular seat on any given Sunday at the Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church.  A peek inside found a middle-aged man in a worn, black suit leaning over the pulpit. Rivulets of sweat streamed down his furrowed brow. 

A number of menfolk lined the hardwood pews, mopping their faces with white handkerchiefs, and womenfolk fanned their red-cheeked babies. The blistering summer heat of 1935 felt hotter than sizzling grease in a frying pan, and a breeze through the open windows was about as rare as pocket change in the offering plate. 

In those days, Americans struggled to keep their heads above the fierce economic typhoon; and folks in the south – Alabamians in particular – were hit harder than a Babe Ruth home run. With daddies out of work and families out of food, a single egg became so valuable that a farm boy could trade it for all the candy he wanted at Dunlap Grocery and Market out on Highway 91; and I reckon, in some ways, the bug-kind got by better than mankind. At least they could catch supper instead of having to grow it or buy it.