4. Mama’s Nice Little Man

The Monroeville “charge” was composed of six churches. The farther-away group of three: Massilon, Antioch and Concord, had services on alternate Sundays, requiring much driving in all weathers, over unpaved roads beset with winter’s snowdrifts, summer’s blinding clouds of dust, and deep mud through early spring and late autumn. Northern Indiana was and is famed for its fertility. Anything and everything grows abundantly in that soil; and, before the roads were conditioned for the horseless carriage, the depth and consistency of the mud in March would tax the strength of a team of draft horses hitched to an empty wagon.

The group of churches nearest us comprised St. Mark’s, directly across the road from the parsonage; Flat Rock, a little brick building four miles east which, the last time I saw it, about a dozen years ago, was used to store a neighbor’s farm machinery; and Marquardt’s, three miles west of us, also named because the membership was composed almost entirely of Marquardts, four generations of them at that time, the three patriarchs of the tribe being well-to-do farmers in their sixties.

It was in this church that I preached my first sermon while still a student in the Theological Seminary. Let me pause briefly to tell you about my earliest experience in the pulpit. Many of the older ones remembered that I had once been a little boy, and when the word had been passed about that I was to preach there on that Sunday afternoon in mid-July, the Marquardts had turned out in full force to see what the young fellow could do.

My sermon was ponderously doctrinal, and I was not very far into it before I noticed that many of my more mature customers, having satisfied themselves that my discourse was utterly incomprehensible and therefore unquestionably orthodox, had retired. I did not blame them. The day was hot, and the farmers who had been toiling all week in their harvest fields were in need of rest. They did their utmost to keep their glassy eyes open and their tanned jaws closed, but the scholarly young hypnotist was laying them out.

Midway of my homily, a baby who had been fretting for some time began to scream, but this didn’t seem to annoy anybody. I raised my voice and so did the baby, but nobody stirred. The baby began to shout and so did St. Paul’s Epistle to the Thessalonians. Presently the comely young mother who, I learned later, was old Jake Marquardt’s favorite granddaughter-in-law, rose and brought her unhappy child down the central aisle. By the time she arrived at the marble-topped washstand which, when the Marquardts celebrated the Holy Communion, was referred to as the altar, the whole congregation had come to life. Even old Jake had roused: doubtless someone had nudged him. I was momentarily baffled, but carried on bravely.

On the pulpit, which stood on a platform a foot higher than the ground floor, there was a tall glass pitcher full of warm water, with a drinking glass beside it. The young woman shifted Junior, who was now yelling his head off, to the crook of her other arm; and, standing on tiptoe, reached for the pitcher which she successfully dragged from its perch, and eased it down onto the washstand. The congregation drew a soft sigh of relief.

Let me remark here, in self-defense, that had I been trapped by such an absurd predicament a few years later, I might have had sense enough to stop what I was doing and pour the water for the baby. That certainly would have made a great hit with the Marquardts. But I was there to conduct a solemn religious service: I was there to preach; not to pour water for crying babies.

The unperturbed young mother filled the glass and held it up to the baby’s lips. He drank greedily, noisily, gratefully—and grinned. By now, all the dark brown Marquardt eyes were dancing. Their heads were wagging from side to side for a better view. Old Jake’s hairy arms were folded on the back of the pew in front of him and he leaned far forward, chuckling happily.

If you will believe it, or even if you don’t, I soberly went on alone into Thirdly. The youngest Marquardt, having slaked his thirst and stolen the show, signaled for more water. This time he was for blowing bubbles. The kids in the congregation tittered and the baby laughed merrily. This was too much. Old Jake exploded and so did everybody else. I belatedly gave it up. The baby’s mama may have noticed that I had stopped, for she abruptly put down the drinking glass and returned to her seat, her numerous relatives and in-laws greeting her en route with applauding eyes.

I still wish, after more than a half-century, that I had been human enough to share the Marquardts’ merriment that day, but I was only a scared rookie, serving my novitiate in a serious trade. It was some time before I recovered from the dehydration and vulcanization I had received in the Theological Seminary.

* * * * *