3. More About Papa

On Christmas Eve, that year, there was an appropriate celebration at the Hopeful Church. There was a tall spruce tree, gay with baubles and lighted with candles. Every child was given a little bag of hard candies; very good, they were. The bags were made of red mosquito bar. There were also oblong bricks of sugared popcorn wrapped in pink tissue paper which obstinately refused to peel off. I was delighted, and a bit frightened too, when Santa Claus came plunging down the aisle and all but smothered me with a beautiful dapple-gray hobbyhorse! I do not remember what anyone else got, except the gold watch that was presented to Mr. Strickland, and I would not have remembered that (so preoccupied was I with my wonderful horse) had this watch not stirred up quite a breeze.

It seems that a few devoted friends of Papa’s had begun to circulate a subscription appeal among the members for money to buy him a gold watch. When Mr. Strickland was approached he demurred. The Reverend already had a fine gold watch, he said. If the people wanted to give a watch to somebody on Christmas, it might be more appropriate if they honored some old member of the Church Board who had labored, in season and out of season, to hold the congregation together.

He talked the promoters of this project into the new idea; and, as no member of the Board had served so long, or given so much time and money to the Church as Mr. Strickland, they decided to present him with the watch. He was so pleased that he promised to give the Reverend a present that would delight him as much as a new watch.

This apparently evoked general dissatisfaction, as Papa was to learn later. Many people thought that Mr. Strickland had his nerve, and said so. Others said that Mr. Strickland was a mean old skinflint. Some of them remembered that Mr. Strickland had found fault with my papa’s sermons.

Papa may have known, before Christmas, that a rumpus was brewing: I do not know about that. In any case, the gold watch was given to Mr. Strickland, on that Christmas Eve, and Papa consented to make the presentation speech. Many people wondered, on the next Sunday morning, whether Mr. Strickland would make good on his promise to present Papa with a gift, but nothing was done about it. Three or four weeks passed, with no word from Mr. Strickland. By this time, according to the mumbled dissent which the boys of our Navy call “scuttlebutt,” the rank and file of Hopeful Church were in quite a dither.

Papa learned of it and was embarrassed. He urged those who came to him with their assurances of full support that it would be better for all parties concerned if they dropped the matter.

One day Papa had an invitation to bring our family to the Strickland home for dinner after the morning service next Sunday. This, then, would be It. Papa and Mama were pleased with the hope that this visit might clear the air of the mounting tension.