6. Music Lessons

I have dwelt, perhaps overlong, on this episode; but I think you will agree that Mr. Auburn deserves remembrance. He addressed other “convocations” in the lower grades. He appeared on the playgrounds. He nagged the Board of Education for more money. He was the talk of the town.

One Sunday, early in February, he attended our church. Next day he came to call. Papa was invited to speak at a convocation on March 4, at the hour when Mr. Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated President of the United States. Afterward, Papa and Mr. Auburn were just like that. Mr. Auburn volunteered to teach a class of Young Married People in our Sunday School. It quickly drained a large flock of Young Marrieds from other churches, and made a lot of people angry. The chairman of the Board of Education, who by this time considered Mr. Auburn a Public Enemy in spite of the fact that nearly all the parents with children in school were definitely on his side, came to Papa and cautioned him against encouraging the Superintendent in his ruinous innovations.

Papa stood his ground and politely informed the tight-fisted old Church Treasurer that he would exercise his rights as a citizen without consulting anybody. It was a courageous stand; but, as usual, the man who paid the piper called the tune, and the following September found us back in Indiana. Incidentally, Mr. Auburn, now that the gas-boom was evaporating, decided that the game wasn’t worth the candle, accepted a bid to a down-state city ten times the size of ours.

But that spring, when Lou wanted to be out on her own, and Papa asked Mr. Auburn for advice, the ubiquitous Superintendent came to our house, two evenings a week, to teach my sister bookkeeping, which brought her a job, that fall, in her cherished Columbia City. Mr. Auburn was quite a fellow!

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