[F was different than most] Those unable to sing were mute, orphans abandoned by their lyrical roots.  Florence sang to them.  She transfused their blood with wine, their skin with a rose [change to a local flower], their hearts with beats.  She sang to her mother, who lost her core after bearing children, after the complications from which she was never the same.  Florence never forgot the last notes that escaped from her mother’s lips as she sang to her younger brother [need a name].  It was a song she would cover over and over, a song she could not bury, a song that would save her mother's life, a song that would send her away.  

I love to tell the story

Of unseen things above,

Suddenly, she felt an impish tug at back of her dress attempting to interrupt her singing.  She ignored it and continued.  No one was allowed to barge in while she was the conducting the Opera seria and choreographing the masquerade, she thought.  She was sheltering and saving orphaned verses with voice.  

I love to tell the story, 

Because I know its true;

Then a note fell to the floor like a loud davul, a hollow thud.  It was most likely someone’s hymnal book.  She attempted to survey the surface from above, but as she glanced down, her eyeglasses fell off her face and onto the floor.  She continued to sing as she knelt down to pick them up.

She was on her knees, fumbling for her glasses, when a callused hand bearing her red horn-rimmed spectacles emerged from above.  Florence knew the marks of field hands well as she herself spent many a morning singing with the laborers.  They would walk carrying their long white baggage of the dead, the mortal cotton bolls that were torn, ripped, split from the defoliated cotton plant.  Their sound was as deep as their sacks.  She was a spinto.  Her voice could shove it’s way through the congregation and finish the number.  However, as she drew her hands closer to Florence, her sound softened and her skin was soothing as she delicately placed them back on Florence’s face.

I love to tell the story, 

'Twill be my theme in glory

To tell the old, old story 

Of Jesus and His love.

Florence heard the rustle of the congregation lowering themselves back down to their seats.  

, waiting for the presence of Dr. John Truett [veteran of WWI visited Milan and saw the last supper] as he approached the pulpit, adjusted his gray single breasted suit and laid his worn copy of the King James Version down in front of him.  She and Sandra immediately sat down at the His tall A-frame combined with the deep bass of his voice willed the congregation into an attentive silence.  

Fellow brothers and sisters, I want to talk about the empty seat at the table.  When we sit down to share the wonderful bounty of the Lord, we often see a space that is unoccupied.  Perhaps it’s your father’s place and he hasn’t made it home from work.  Or perhaps it’s your older sibling place.  They cannot come because their away at Texas Technological College.  The empty seat concerns me because it shows a weakness in our fellowship.  And I do not believe the fine citizens of Lamesa to lack physical strength.  This concerns be because it demonstrates inflexibility in our fellowship.  And I do not believe the opportunistic farmers of Lamesa to lack versatility.  This concerns me because it portrays a sense of incompatibility.  And I do not believe the kindred spirits of Lamesa to remain apathetic.

Fellow brothers and sisters.  I would like to offer a small lesson in history.  We all know that our town was founded near the edge of the caprock, hence the name Lamesa, the Spanish word for the table top.  But do we know why the founding ranchers chose an incorrect spelling?  

The rumblings of the word “No” bubbled up from the silence of the listeners.

I know what you all are thinking.  Why sure, we can go down to the archives of the Texas Historical Foundation and ask why this is the case.  But they will simply state that the first town committee preferred the anglicized version over the Spanish La Mesa.  This is only half of the story.  The other half resided in the mind of the rancher.  The rough, weathered individual who, with the Lord’s help, tamed the Llano Estacado.  He toiled day in-day out, growing delirious navigating the abandoned expanse of the caprock.  Asphyxiation was his companion as he endured the arid droughts.  Deafness was his relief as the persistent sand storms flooded the air and stung his skin.  Yes sir, the Lord was always by the rancher’s side during this troublesome time.  When he returned home to feel the stable wooden floor boards under his feet,  he grew to respect the companionship of his fellow man, he also grew to despise the empty seat at the table, the space between the letters.  No matter how incorrect, he would ensure the unity of this town right down to its very name, Lamesa.  

Sandra [who would she be in the last supper?] gave Florence an endearing look and tapped her on the shoulder, “Do you want to come over to my house after the service?”

Florence tried to focus on Sandra’s face, but for some reason she couldn’t read her.  “Sure, but I’ll have to ask my mother first.”

From that moment on the two were clinically inseparable, so much so that their mothers tagged them kindred spirits one August Sunday afternoon as they were sharing quilt patterns over iced tea in the backyard of one of their houses.  Florence and Sandra were also sitting on the grass  enjoying the late sun as they wrote in their diaries.  

Florence’s mother saw the two seated beside each other and immediately said, “Now would you just look at that Nora. Which one do you think is your daughter?  They look like mirror images.”

Nora lowered her head so that she could see above her eyeglasses, “I tell you what, those girls sure are kindred spirits.  Look at the way they hold their pens.  You might think they’re writing the exact same thing.”

The comments would persist, not by their mothers, but by other women, such as Mrs. Stream a teacher and the pastor’s wife.  She would route Nora’s words to the other teacher’s of Lamesa Middle School.  Once the teacher’s began talking, the message would spread across the table to the other women in the First Baptist Church and the rest of the town.  Mrs. Stream relayed the message to the pastor, who was struck by the power of the words and renamed his next sermon, Kindred Spirits for the Work of Christ.  The mayor followed suit and branded his pre-harvest speech with a slight modification, Kindred Spirits for the Work of Cotton.

As the cotton bolls matured and the stalks began to defoliate, school started with the usual awkwardness for Florence and Sandra.  

Florence and Sandra came from opposite ends of the town, at least that’s how their dry words came out when told the other freshman at Lamesa High School on orientation day.

“My parent’s came in on the 87 from Lubbock.”  Florence would proudly say and then give a secret wink to Sandra.

“Mine came in on the 87 from Big Spring.”  Sandra would reply and wink twice back at Florence.  

Their remarks were received with confused faces, frustrated expressions or the persistent reply “Oh, you’re puttin me on right?”