by Wendell Berry, 2000
Very sweet tale about a sweet man, the town barber, in Port William, Kentucky. Full of love and pain, the beauty of nature, hard-work, relationships, and faithfulness and steadfastness, forgiveness along life’s journey. Jayber’s life starts out by the river and ends by the river. He’s an orphan sent to live in a Christian orphanage where he learns to cut hair, then to college to be a minister, then because of all his questions about the Bible, and not having any answers, he decides he can’t be a preacher and leaves college. Makes his way to Lexington and partners with a barber, turns his shop around and one night when the rivers are rising, he leaves – packs his belongings in a cardboard box and finds his way back – a long hard cold walk, to Port William. Burley Coulter picks him up by the river and sets him up in Port William in the barber shop. He lives and works there and becomes one of the community. He gardens and cares for his home and shop (same building) and becomes the gathering place for the men of the community. He becomes part of it. He falls in love with Mattie Kieth and even though she marries Troy Chatham, a man no one respects, he loves her until she dies. He dated another woman, Clydie, for many years, and one night at a dance, he sees Troy dancing with another woman, and Troy gives him a big smile. Jayber is immediately sick at heart (at the thought of Troy cheating on Mattie, and he, himself cheating on her, too). He goes to the bathroom, climbs out the window, leaves, and never sees Clydie again. He decides he will be true to Mattie, and he is for the rest of his life, even though she remains married to Troy, a despicable man.
After 32 years in Port William, as the town barber, the grave-digger and the church janitor, he decides to close up shop and move down to the river in a cottage that Burley Coulter lets him use. He is very happy by the river, gardens, fishes, and still barbers. He runs across Mattie once in awhile in an old growth forest of her dad’s – a beautiful spot with birds, trees, and the play of light. They never plan to meet, it just happens they both love it there.
Years later, Mattie gets sick and is in the hospital dying. Jayber knows and vows to not go see her – he has no right to, he thinks. Then one day, he hears terrible crashing and walks to find out that Troy is logging every tree in the forest to sell and try to pay off his debts.
He leaves to find a place to lay down, by a “drift log.” He sleeps – like death itself – a dreadful sleep. When he awakens, he goes home, cleans himself up, takes Danny Branch’s boat up the river, goes into the hospital at Hargrave to see Mattie. Last few paragraphs:
“When she saw it was me, she said, “Jayber. Oh, he’s cutting the woods.”
‘And so she knew.
‘Her eyes filled with tears, but she said quietly, “I could die in peace, I think, if the world was beautiful. To know it’s being ruined is hard.”
‘Then, in the loss of all the world, when I might have said the words I had so long wanted to say, I could not say them. I saw that I was not going to be able to talk without crying, and so I cried. I said, “But what about this other thing?”
‘She looked at me then. “Yes,” she said. She held out her hand to me. She gave me the smile that I had never seen and will not see again in this world, and it covered me all over with light.”