A tale from preacher Buck
The Beckhams were retired country folks. They lived near the sleepy southern village of Concord for most of their 58 years of married life. Mr. Beckham was pushing eighty, but he stood straight and tall without an ounce of extra weight. He worked an acre of crowder peas and corn with some squash and tomatoes on the side. Evelyn Beckham was a small, gray haired lady who did a lot of canning and gave most of it away because she didn’t want to see anything going to waste. They were a grand couple.
The road to Beckham seemed two miles long going out and a half a mile long coming back. The dirt road ran by the house which sat a car parking and a half from the ditch bank. The front porch rested on three-foot pillars and the Beckhams often sat on the porch in a matched pair of rocking chairs. But this sultry day Mr. Beckham was not in sight, just his wife. Evelyn Beckham was talking to a young man, whom I recognized as an insurance salesman. As he rose from Mr. Beckham’s rocker she said, “I’m sorry, maybe you can catch my husband home some other time.”
I stepped out of the car and spoke to the salesman as he left.
“I’ll call back,” the young man shouted through his opened car window.
“I’ll warn my husband,” the lady of the house replied. Then she turned to me. “Come in, Preacher,” she said. “We’ll go inside. Mr. Beckham will be glad to see you.”
I sat in a chair across from the kitchen door. “I’ll get you a glass of tea.” Mrs. Beckham stepped into the kitchen and spoke to an unseen occupant. “It’s the preacher,” she said. “You can come out now.”
There was a rustle in the corner at the kitchen table which was covered with a red checked oil cloth that nearly touched the floor. Two long shoes pushed back from under the table cloth. A pair of long legs followed as Mr. Beckham backed out from under the table.
“Almost got me,” he said. “Next time warn me sooner.”
Some years later I called on some parishioners in a large house on a busy street in Augusta, Georgia. I thought I heard a television playing as I got out of the car. However, when I walked across the porch everything was quiet.
I knocked on the front door. No one answered.
The next Sunday in church a little boy told me, “Come see us again preacher. The last time the house was a mess and we weren’t home.”