The Front Porch Prophet

“Did the children do okay?” A.J. asked. All the Longstreet children had taken part in the ceremony. J.J. had been the ring bearer, Harper Lee had been the flower girl, and Emily Charlotte had stood in attendance. They had all been excited about their participation except J.J., who had thrown a screaming fit when he first viewed his miniature grey tuxedo. He’ll never wear that, A.J. had said, wondering why women insisted upon dressing little boys to look adorable. He’ll wear it, had been Maggie’s reply, and she was right. But it had been an act of will on her part, and she was a strong-willed woman.

“My daughters were angelic. Your son was not.” She shook her head. “I swear they gave us the wrong baby.” This was their old gag when J.J. became challenging, which was most of the time. The joke lay in the fact that they had not delivered him in a hospital at all.

He had been born during the worst blizzard in Sequoyah history, which surprised neither A.J. nor Maggie once they came to know him. Georgia is not snow country, and even the mountainous areas get only a light dusting two or three times each winter. But J.J. was born on the night of the Hundred Year Storm, when nearly thirty inches of powder were unceremoniously dumped on the mountain valley during a twelve-hour period. Temperatures hovered around zero, and howling winds from the west chased the wind chill to minus thirty. Trees began to snap and fall before nightfall, taking with them the electricity that warmed the valley and kept the darkness at bay. A.J. lit the lanterns and built a large fire before wading out into the storm to retrieve his neighbor, Estelle Chastain.

“I don’t want to be snowed in with Estelle,” he grumbled as Maggie directed him into his boots and coat. She handed him his scarf.

“Go get her, anyway,” was the firm reply. No elderly neighbors were freezing to death on her watch. They settled Estelle into the Folly, and she and the children curled up in front of the fire. It was a scene straight out of the eighteenth century. Outside, the arctic winds lashed the Longstreet sanctuary. Inside, the children and Estelle drowsed by the hearth. A.J. was discovering that it was difficult to read by lantern light regardless of Honest Abe’s luck with the practice. Maggie and John Robert were rocking quietly, staring at the fiery phantoms on the grate.

“This is kind of cozy,” said John Robert. “Reminds me of the days before the TVA.”

“Yeah, it could be a lot worse,” agreed A.J., feeling at peace.

“My water just broke,” said Maggie. She was eight months pregnant. At her regular visit two days earlier, the doctor had pronounced her fit as a fiddle and right on schedule. But be all that as it may, the snow had just hit the fan.

“You’re not due yet!” said A.J., stating the obvious. Impending childbirth always pumped him right up.

“I can’t help that,” she said. “I’ve been having pains for about two hours. I thought that maybe it was back strain, but we’re about to have a baby.” A.J. thought she was awfully calm, given the circumstances.

“But you’re not due yet!” he said.

“If you say that again, I will hurt you,” Maggie said. She was up and pacing while holding her back. She always walked during early labor, and her communications tended to be unambiguous. John Robert jumped from his chair. It was no time for sitting. First he tried the phone, which was dead. Then he shoved past A.J. on his way to the door.

“I’ll go warm up the truck,” he said as he put on his coat and his old hat with the fur earflaps. A.J. stared at him for a moment before shaking his head.

“There is no way we can make it to the hospital in this storm,” he said to his father. The wind howled loudly, as if agreeing with him. A.J.’s mind raced to come up with a plan. Estelle startled awake. When advised of the situation, she sprang to her feet and went to boil water on the gas stove. A.J. thought for another moment, and then he spoke.

“We need to try to get her to Doc Miller’s place. It’s not too far.” He looked at Maggie, who had paused from her stroll around the living room to breathe through a pain. She was notorious for short, dramatic labors and showed every indication of moving right along with this one. “Maggie, I think we should try to take you over to Doc’s. What do you think?”