"Miss Rudy attended the Quaker meeting, though it pained her to do so. The elders reading scripture at the pulpit would mispronounce the words, and she would wince. They would read about the ten leapers whom Jesus healed, and she would flinch as if someone had struck her with a whip.

The worst Sunday of all was when Pastor Taylor called on Wilbur Matthews to come forward and read a passage of Scripture. It took Wilbur five minutes to read three verses, and one of them was "Jesus wept." Five painful minutes, and even then he couldn't do it. Finally Wilbur said he couldn't see without his glasses and sat down, to everyone's relief. No one suspected anything, except for Miss Rudy, who thought, Wilbur Matthews can't read. And poor Wilbur was so embarrassed, so ashamed, he stopped coming to church.

Miss Rudy went to visit him. She knocked on his front door. Wilbur opened the door. She said, "We've missed you at church, Wilbur."

He said, "Well, I've been awfully busy. I've had lots to do. You know how it is."

Miss Rudy said, "Wilbur, I can teach you how to read."

Wilbur blustered, "What do you mean? I know how to read."

Miss Rudy stared him down. "Wilbur," she said, "I know when a man can't read."

Wilbur began weeping. He was ashamed. He could scarcely read. All these years he'd kept it a secret. But now he was tired of the deception, of patting his pockets like he was searching for glasses. A man can keep a secret only so long. He blurted out, "I can't read and I'm too old to learn. I'm a dumb old man."

Miss Rudy said, "Don't talk that way. You come to the library this Friday at closing time and we'll start."

So Wilbur went.

I would walk past the library with my brother Roger on the way to the Dairy Queen after supper on Friday nights. We would drop our books in the outside depository and we'd see the lights on. The doors would be locked. We'd press our faces to the glass and watch Miss Rudy hold up flashcards and watch Wilbur Matthews frown and study each card and then blurt something out.

If he got it right, Miss Rudy would smile. If he wasn't right, we could read her lips: "Try again, Wilbur." And he'd try again and keep trying, until he got it right.

He went to the library every Friday night for one year. Miss Rudy never told anyone and neither did he. Sometimew I would see him over at the biographies, looking through the Childhood of Famous Americans series."

"After several months, Wilbur came back to church, and when the pastor asked for a volunteer to read the Scripture, Wilbur raised his hand, eased out of his pew, and walked down front to the pulpit. That long walk down. All those people watching. All those people thinking, Oh no, not Wilbur.

Wilbur was scared. His hands shook as he opened his Bible. Then he glanced down, and there was Miss Rudy in the third row, right side; she smiled at him and mouthed the words, "You can do it." And he did. He read about the ten lepers whom Jesus had healed and how only one had the decency to thank Him. When Wilbur finished reading, he closed his Bible, looked down to the third row at Miss Rudy, and said, "Thank you, Miss Rudy."

She mouthed the words, "You're welcome, Wilbur. You're welcome."

No one knew what he meant, except for my brother and me--and we never told. Oh, people talked about it. They speculated about it on account of Miss Rudy wasn't married. Why did Wilbur thank her? What did she do? What was going on? But Roger and I never told, and Wilbur and Miss Rudy never told either. Then people forgot about it, until one year later when Wilbur Matthews died and left his money to the library, and no one knew why, except for Roger and me and we weren't talking. The library added on a room and Miss Rudy hired the town jeweler to make a brass plaque that read:

In Memory of
Wilbur Matthews--
A Man of Courage"

"This summer they built on to the library, and the Wilbur Matthews Room is gone. I was there when a worker pried off the brass plaque and it bent, and he turned to his boss and asked, "Do you suppose we oughtta keep this?"

His boss said, "Naw, you can pitch it." And that's what he did. I watched him do it. He pitched it in a wastebasket.

But I retrieved that plaque, took it home, straightened it out, and polished it. I'm going to go back to the library, sneak over to the biography section, to the Childhood of Famous Americans series, and find the book titled William Almon Wheeler: Man of Vision. I'm going to put Wilbur's plaque in that book. It'll be safe there. No one ever reads it. If someone does find it, years from now, it'll be a mystery. They'll look at that plaque and wonder who Wilbur Matthews was and why he was a man of courage. But I won't tell. It's a secret and I intend to keep it that way.

I've lived in Harmony 'most all my life, in this same little town. I walk up and down the same streets I did years ago, past the same houses and same people sitting on their porches. But underneath the visible lies the invisible--our shameful secrets, our quiet shames.

Then we get found out and brace ourselves for ridicule, but are visited with grace. Grace knocks on our door and pays us a visit. Just like Miss Rudy. Grace takes us by the hand and says, "That's not so bad. I've heard worse. Let's see if we can make things better."

When love takes you by the hand and leaves you better, that is home. That's the place to stake your claim and build your life. You might never get written about in the Childhood of Famous Americans series, but there are deeper blessings to be had."

~ Philip Gulley, from Home to Harmony