4. Mama’s Nice Little Man

Of our six months’ residence in Columbia City, while we waited for Papa’s return from Des Moines, I have nothing to report but our unhappiness.

The new, jerry-built house in which we lived stood forlornly in the middle of a block of vacant lots. The owner had not sodded or seeded a lawn, and the raw, yellow clay was a muddy pond; for it rained endlessly throughout the autumn, winter and early spring.

We had very few visitors. I doubt whether many of our friends knew we were back in town. Mama read and reread to us well-remembered stories from an old copy of Chatterbox. The rest of the time we spent looking out at the rain and the mud.

One dreary March day Mama had a letter that made her sing! It was from Papa. The School Savings Bank project had blown up. The adventurous promoter had been disappointed with the results of his experiment in every city where it had been introduced. The banks considered it a nuisance and the school children were not interested.

But it wasn’t as if we were out of a job! Papa’s letter went on to say that he had foreseen the impending collapse of the school banking business and had written to synodical officials in Indiana inquiring whether there were any country churches in their territory needing a pastor. And he had received word that a group of rural churches in the vicinity of Monroeville had recently lost their minister.

And the officials had queried the Monroeville people who remembered that Papa had spoken there at a convention. If he would come, they would welcome him. He had accepted the bid and would be home on Thursday! Hooray!

If I may adapt a few memorable words from one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s most tender verses, no hunter or sailor, home from the hill or the sea, ever had a warmer welcome than my papa when he breezed in, that evening, to tell us about Monroeville while he watched Mama pack our things for the joyful migration.

Lou and I danced with delight! We had hated the house we lived in, and so had Mama. Now we would all be happy again. And let me add, in case my remembered exuberance hints at a forthcoming disaster, we were indeed very happy in Monroeville.

Of course our chief reason for happiness, when we were happy, was the complete contentment of my mama. So long as Mama was happy, nothing else mattered much. We could handle whatever other problems might arise. Mama was back now among people she could understand,friendly,warm-hearted, unaffected country folks. (I know that folk is preferred to folks, in this setting, but we always said folks, and I still like the word. Folk, in my private lexicon, is snooty, patronizing and supercilious. Whenever anybody speaks of “these good folk,” I know that he considers himself several cuts brighter and more sophisticated than they are.)