Day 825: 5 Minute Freewrite CONTINUATION: Thursday - Prompt: cleft

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Mrs. Slocum-Lofton and her grandson Captain H.F. Lee had talked a good while Friday evening, and, since he had invited her to go to the Weekend Oatmeal Feed going on at his cousin's home in Tinyville. He had planned to take five people in his car, because folks from the Church in the Midst of Life wanted to go down and see what the Good Neighbors Fellowship in Tinyville was doing – so, Mrs. Maggie Thornton, Mrs. Margie Bell, and Rev. and Mrs. Baxter were coming to volunteer.

Mrs. Slocum-Lofton made six – a tight squeeze, so Captain Lee's next idea was to rent a small van, but – .

“Find a van that seats twelve, Henry, and I'll split the cost with you and hire a driver. I know that you are very tired already, and of course I've kept you up – but I'm going to go now and convince several of my friends that we all need to support this instead of that other thing we were going to, so, the van will be filled!”

“As you like, Grandmother – we can always use extra hands and willing hearts.”

Mrs. Slocum-Lofton's influence was indeed vast – Mrs. York just said yes because she was accustomed to saying yes to her masterful friend. Mrs. Yeats and Mrs. Byron needed more convincing, but yielded to the idea that “we need to look at not only rebuilding the inanimate infrastructure but the kinds of people who run it all for us. We must make some sign to the servant class that we care about them – we cannot continue to treat them as automatons.

"The holidays are coming and Antoinette is brewing up a perfect storm for all of us – we need a hiding place, a shelter, to be hidden, as the song says, in the cleft of the rock. My hero grandson is providing us all the cover we could ever need and he doesn't even know it – let the man protect and serve us by taking us to serve a few bowls of oatmeal!”

6:25am sharp, Saturday morning – the van arrived at the Rosewood Apartments, and Mrs. Slocum-Lofton, Mrs. Thornton, and Mrs. Bell got in. 6:32am – over to the Church in the Midst of Life, and the Baxters got in. Over onto Jonathan Lofton Avenue, that long, swank drive from the Financial District to the foot of the Blue Ridge, where you could almost see the money flowing down the avenue from neighborhood to neighborhood – Mrs. Yeats and Mrs. Byron were ready to be picked up at their palatial rental homes.

There was only one hitch. Mrs. York was outside the house she shared with Mrs. Slocum-Lofton, but she was clearly pouting when the driver got out to help her.

“I kind of want to go to Antoinette's tea instead – she has such delightful teacakes, and water crackers, and such!” she wailed.

Mrs. Slocum-Lofton heard that, and started rolling down her window as Mrs. Byron said to Mrs. Yeats, with a chuckle, “I don't even know why Mildred tries it!”

“Mildred Millicent Milton York! No friend would any more allow another friend to go to Antoinette's event than a friend would permit another friend to go to teatime on the H.M.S. Titanic – with the deck already sloping! Get in the van, please!”

“But, Selene … the lady fingers Antoinette always has … and the Stilton with the fresh goldenrod honeycomb … and the Roquefort in case the goldenrod honey still has just a bit of that smell … .”

Mrs. Slocum-Lofton's voice had still not broken with age, as deep altos lasted longer. The worn but deep, soft velvet of her everyday speech vanished into the thunder of command:

“Mildred, I'm not going to say it again – get in this van.”

Mrs. York's lip started quivering.

“Well … okay, but, I hope if we have to spend a day in the countryside, that at least the country bumpkins have good bumpkin food … .”

Mrs. Baxter whispered into the ear of Mrs. Thornton: “Where did Captain Lee get that thundering old slave mistress and her sidekick from?”

“Mother Baxter, my word! Captain Lee can't help that he has big-time slave owners not too far back on both sides of his family! Not everyone was privileged to be born Black like you and Rev. Baxter or Italian-American like me and Margie [Bell]!”

Rev. Baxter cracked up laughing.

“I suppose we do have to check our assumptions of racial superiority nowadays,” he said, and they blended their chuckling into the laughter of Mrs. Byron and Mrs. Yeats as Mrs. York and Mrs. Slocum-Lofton fussed with each other.

The driver and Captain Lee, sitting up front, heard very little of it – the driver was concentrating on the road and the traffic reports on the radio, as the huge Lofton County crowd going to and fro for early fall events was also out early on the roadways.

Captain Lee had put in ear plugs and was sound asleep, gone home to his custodial grandparents and all the other Lees-and-Fairlanes-of-the-mountain, all sitting around outside with their guitars and banjos and mandolins and fiddles and dulcimers and rub boards, with their friends on the mountain of every color, just making music and loving life and each other on such a clear, bright fall day … his peaceful childhood past and his peaceful old-man future, blended in one glorious dream.

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