Read Almost Friends for Free Online Page A

almost fifty years, is a welder’s heat, cleaving them one day, joining them together the next.

Six
The Chief Evangelist
    I n the one month since Dale Hinshaw had proclaimed himself the Chief Evangelist of Harmony Friends Meeting, he’d managed to alienate half the congregation. Attendance at worship had declined precipitously, owing to Dale’s weekly rants about people not coming to church. Why he scolded the people who did show up was a mystery to everyone.
    Attendance always declined in the summer, due to vacations and family reunions. But every year it was the same; Sam panicked through July, until Barbara reminded him folks would return in the fall, refreshed and rarin’ to go, just when Sam was pooped and in need of time off.
    Dale Hinshaw, who kept careful records of who was attending and who wasn’t, didn’t help matters. “The Muldocks were gone today,” he announced to Sam at the front door after worship one Sunday. “Asa told me they were going to the Methodist church now. Ellis and Miriam weren’t here last Sunday or today. Plus, the Iversons haven’t been here for a month.”
    “The Muldocks are at the Methodist church today because Harvey’s niece is having her baby baptized. Ellis and Miriam are on vacation in Michigan, and the Iversons went back east to visit their parents,” Sam explained.
    Even though he had perfectly plausible explanations, Sam felt a rumble of anxiety deep in his bowels.
    “I saw the Iversons yesterday at the Dairy Queen,” Dale said. “They’re back in town. I wonder why they weren’t here?”
    “Maybe they just wanted to spend a quiet morning at home. Maybe they went to the state park for the day to have a picnic. Maybe they got tired of certain people badgering them about why they hadn’t been to church.”
    Subtlety is lost on Dale. So too, for that matter, is the obvious. “I think I’ll give them a call,” he said, then paused. “No, I think we ought to go see them in person. When can you go?”
    “I’m not going anywhere,” Sam said firmly.
    “I think you’ve forgotten our Lord’s counsel that two should go to confront a brother who’s lost in sin.”
    “Who said the Iversons are lost in sin? They’ve been visiting with family. They go every summer when Paul gets out of school. Wanting to see your aging parents is not a sin.”
    “Let the dead bury the dead, that’s what I say,” Dale intoned piously. Then he pulled a computer printout from the inside pocket of his plaid sport coat. “I did a graph on our attendance. As you can see, we’re down 28 percent in the past month. It appears the Lord has turned His back on us.”
    Dale had purchased a computer that spring and had pestered Sam ever since, presenting him with pie charts and bargraphs chronicling their church’s decline. “The way I got it figured, we’ll have to close the doors next February if we don’t do something right now.”
    Tossing Dale out of the church would reverse the decline, but Sam was too charitable to say so.
    Of course, Dale has been predicting their church’s demise ever since he began attending decades ago. The computer has only allowed him to do it more dramatically. He bombards people with e-mails, calling down the wrath of God on those who won’t forward his missives along. Apparently too cheap to buy virus protection, he has infected half the computers in town, causing them to crash and their owners to long for his slow and torturous death.
    “I could always e-mail the Iversons,” Dale said. “I got this story I’ve been wanting to send them anyway.”
    Dale’s e-mail stories invariably concerned themselves with tales of people who’d slighted the Lord, causing all manner of misfortune to befall them.
    “Let’s give them another week,” Sam suggested.
    “Well, just so you know their souls are in your hands, not mine. I tried to get ’em right with the Lord. It won’t be my fault if they die this week and go to hell.”
    “I’ll assume all