7. The Old Home

I am not finding it an easy assignment to report on the various absurdities in which my brother delighted. One thing I must make clear: there was no malice in him, nor was he ever willfully sacrilegious.

When, for example, he suggested to Uncle Perry that he might name his newly purchased Berkshire boar in honor of an ultra-pious neighbor who had recently done him dirt in a trivial business transaction, Clyde did not know that our misanthropic uncle would find pleasure in telling the joke to another local pagan.

This much had to be said for Uncle Perry: he did not claim authorship for a witticism that had been contrived by someone else. It was long before the day of party telephone lines, but news did get about through the country, losing little while in transport.

“And him a preacher’s boy! I must say! ‘Pears like he’d a-had a poor fetchin’-up!”

Nor did my humor-loving brother mend matters much when, sorrowfully rebuked by a neighbor in the presence of our parents, he admitted that it was a rude thing to say, seeing that Uncle Perry’s fine Berkshire hog had never done him any harm.

I should like to pause here long enough to say something about the sad state of religion deep in the Hoosier hinterland three-score years ago; not meaning that at fourteen I was philosophizing on this matter, but even as a growing lad I heard much talk about it and was amazed and disgusted by it. Not until later years did I try to account for it on any rational ground.

The prevailing thought-life in the remote rural areas of the Mississippi Valley did not improve very much from the toil-weary days of the post-pioneers to the era of the horseless carriage and paved roads to town. By “post-pioneers” I mean the second wave of the immigrant tide composed of the children and grandchildren of Europeans who had settled in our eastern states.

Most of these hard-working country people slaved on their land and in the woods as their fathers had done before them. There were no libraries, nor would there have been either the time or the incentive to read books even if they had been available.

Occasionally some youngster, brighter or perhaps lazier than his contemporaries, would escape from this unrewarded drudgery and find employment in one of the growing cities. Returning home on a visit, his report on better living conditions and lighter work would spread discontentment among the younger fry, many of whom would follow his example. Sometimes an ambitious youth would get to college and set a pattern for his relatives and friends.

In one of my papa’s country parishes there was a family of five tall, handsome sons. The eldest managed to go to the State University. The rest of them joined him. All five graduated, studied law, and set up their business in the state capital where they soon became the most influential legal firm in that city.

But most of the country people clung to the land and endured the endless toil it exacted of them. Of course this is not to say that they had no recreation or entertainment at all. As I have remarked earlier, the country schoolhouse was a center for many adult activities; Friday-night classes in penmanship, choral singing, spelling matches. But to such diversions, the churches made little or no contribution.