SPRING MIRACLE A Tale From Homer Pheeder's Collection of Homespun Humor Copyright 1994--The Computer Concern You can always tell when it is spring in Stevens County. There is usually just enough snow that half the population mutters to their neighbors about how 'winter's a little slow leavin' us this year', but because there is black, gooey muck wherever there isn't still snow, the rest of the folks can say, 'Spring's right around the corner...why my tractor's so stuck it'll be July before I can dig it out.' Perhaps the Ladies Aid Unification Banquet, held each spring about this time, derives its history because of this strange sense of disunity that seems to involve everyone in the community about this time of year. Despite the fact that hardly anyone in the Town of Springdale knows just exactly what it is that the Ladies Aid does, nearly everyone in the community attends this annual event. Aside from listening to Louella Grissom pounding on the wheezy old organ that sits unplayed the rest of the year in the corner of the Grange Hall, the majority of the people just come to the banquet to see their neighbors, some with whom they haven't visited all winter. Most folks just love to talk about how much older their neighbors look since last year. Perhaps they are even a little meaner than last year at this time, but about the best that anyone could hope for would be a truly juicy piece of gossip. Sometimes all it takes to keep everyone happily yakking away over the potluck dinner is the news that one of their members is about to be unexpectedly blessed with a late arrival. There is nothing more titillating than a couple, late into their middle years, suddenly announcing they are having baby. Eyes glow, tears glisten down powdered cheeks, and a flurry of lace hankies shift into high gear all across the Grange hall, as the ladies commiserate with the mother-to-be. Meanwhile, the men all covertly smile, count on their fingers and nod at one another, as if to say, "*I* know what they were doing early this winter, when it snowed for three days..." The true highlight of the spring banquet is when they give away the door prizes. Each year Gladys Mangola and her seven kids all flee to the Spring White Sale in Spokane, practically filling the back of her ancient Dodge Carryall to the roofline with gadgets, linens and geegaws which are then given away as door prizes. This year, practically everyone is sitting on the edge of their seats as the time for the drawing comes near. For there, draped over the speaker's podium on the stage of the Grange Hall, is a beautiful, velvet bedspread with the face of our precious Lord Jesus big enough to nearly cover the entire stage. Each of the folks in the community have purchased at least a few of the tickets to the drawing, and all the stubs are dumped into the creaky old hopper. One of the ladies from the Ladies Aid gives the hopper a might twirl and the drawing is on. As the pile of gadgets on the stage begins to lessen in size, the tension begins to mount, for it is plain to see that they have elected to save the bedspread for last. Finally, when the entire Grange Hall is a white hot bustle with the sound of people opening wrapping paper, they start the last drawing of the night, for the genuine velvet slipcover with a picture of Jesus Christ on the outside looking meaningfully into the assemblage in the Grange Hall. Sally Methorpe, a somewhat withdrawn widower who lives across the street from the Reservation Tavern in Springdale, lets out a screech, and everyone laughs, as she has won the coverlet. For days thereafter, the ladies of the town bustling on their way to and from the Post Office to get their mail, make it a point to stop in at Sally's little bungalow, all the better to admire the coverlet now adorning Sally's broken-down old couch in her living room, overlooking Springdale's main thoroughfare. One by one, or in groups they came to stand in reverent silence gazing at the cloth painting. Some seemed stunned to notice that, were someone were to sit down on the couch, they would have to place their posteriors right up against the face of Jesus. Those who did notice the peculiar arrangement were far too polite to let on they thought anything of it. After all, it was a beautiful piece of art, and Sally was very lucky to have won. Two weeks passed, and Lester Elgar, a portly, drunken but harmless Scottish farmer in these parts, came calling on Sally, just as she and Roseanna Dempsy were about to have a cup of coffee in her living room. Several months back, when the snow was still deep on the ground, Lester had plowed Sally's driveway for her, with the understanding that she would pay him when she could. Lester sat there uncomfortably on the couch across from Roseanna, gazing absent-mindedly out the window while Sally went into the back room to fetch his money. He wasn't thinking of anything in particular, but did have a glimmer in the corner of his mind that a cold glass of beer over at the Reservation Tavern would be pretty good right about now. Suddenly, he felt a sharp, painful biting sensation on his rear, and as Sally innocently wandered back into the living room, he jumped to his feet with a roar of anguish. "Sumtin' bit me arse!" he cried out, pointing a quavering finger at the couch. Snatching the money from Sally's hand, he once more pointed at the couch and, in a plaintive screeching wail of a voice repeated, "Sumtin' bit me on the arse while I was't sittin' there mindin' me own business." And with one final screech, Lester curtly nodded to each of the ladies present, and curtly withdrew across the street for a beer. Try as they might, neither Sally nor Roseanna could see or feel anything that might have brought Lester to grief. They carefully each felt over the magnificent coverlet, looking for anything amiss, but try as they might, they couldn't find one thing wrong. However, by late afternoon that day, the gossip channels were running at a feverish pace. For old Lester Elgar had spent most of the day sitting gingerly on a barstool getting drunk. So drunk was he, that by the end of the day hardly anyone could understand a word he said, between the copious amounts of beer and his already-thick Scottish brogue. Throughout the afternoon and into the early evening Lester drank until he finally lay his massive grizzled head down on the bar for a nap, but persisted to the end in trying to convince everyone that would listen that Jesus had bit him in the rear, over at Sally's house, and why would she want Jesus to do him that way. "Aye," he said, waving his arms over his head, "Oim nae one o'the chosen 'n this dead dog town, t'be sure, but havin' Jesus bite me on m'arse is way beyond me means..." As fate would have it, a pair of church elders, stopping off for a surreptitious glass of beer on their way home, overheard fragments of the gossip roaring its way up and down the aisles of the tavern with ecstatic glee. "Why, it's a miracle! That's what it is. That drunken old galoot went across the street to cause trouble for Miss Sally, and a picture of Jesus came off the wall and bit him on the ass!" "There was witnesses, too. They all agreed that Jesus rose up from the grave and bit that old codger right on his hind end, yessir! Good damned thing, too. If'n I'd caught him causing trouble for the widow, I'd'a given him a double load of rock salt, you can bet on that!" "It's a miracle all right! Why last year, Eloise Crandall saw Jesus Christ, as plain as day, walking down a row of potato plants over at the Potato Farm. She said he was real friendly like, even waved at her a time or two..." When the hearsay finally began to wear a little thin, the church elders decided they should first revisit the scene of the incident in question, the better to determine, for themselves, the validity of anything that they had heard. When they knocked on Sally's front door, the first thing they saw was her old couch laying upside down in the middle of her living room floor. "Oh, that," Sally said offhandedly when they asked what was happening, "Lester Elgar came over this morning and got poked in the rear with a busted spring from this old couch. We decided, after hearin' the gossip and all, we'd better do something to fix it before someone tries to make my house into a shrine or something. Heck it's springtime. Anything's bound to happen!" This is Homer Pheeder telling you, it's almost spring, but not quite done with winter. But before you go off on a tangent, you'd better look twice to make sure you're not just suffering from a bad case of spring fever.