7. The Old Home

And now we will return to my papa whose unhappiness in his work at the Salem Church started this discussion of “Security of Tenure.”

I think he was quite lonesome, especially through those first few months as winter came on. During the autumn he had taken long walks in the neighborhood. Directly across the road from our property was an eighty-acre timberland, mostly oak, ash and hickory, very old and valuable trees. It was kept clear of underbrush and was one of the most beautiful forests in all that area. Papa took delight in his rambles through this woodland.

There was no rural mail delivery in those days, and Papa would stroll down to the tiny village of Wilmot for The Columbia City Post (one day late) and the occasional letter from former parishioners and Mansfield, Ohio, relatives.

When we went to Wilmot we turned west in front of our house on a gently zigzagging, unpaved, sandy road that followed the course of the creek at a distance of some three hundred yards. We passed the red brick schoolhouse within a stone’s-throw of our potato patch and proceeded to the Salem Church. There we left the road, turned to the right, climbed a low rail fence, and walked through a wheat field that angled toward the creek. The creek was growing wider here, almost a river. We climbed another fence and were in another large woodland belonging to Mr. Ryder who owned the wheat field and the gristmill that was powered by the dam. We crossed the bridge over the dam, passed the mill, and came to a little clump of houses, a blacksmith shop, a gravel pit, and the general store. In the front end of the store was the post office with a large cabinet of small mailboxes; a few of them lock boxes. The only advantage in renting a lock box was the satisfaction of being able to get your mail while it was being distributed, which took quite a long time, for there were many postal cards to be read; and, too, Mr. Hicks, the postmaster, would often have to leave the mail only half distributed while he waited on a customer who had difficulties deciding which piece of calico she wanted.

We were accustomed to living in villages, but none so small and apathetic as Wilmot. Last time I was there, my good Watts Beezley drove me over to see the old mill dam. We stopped the car on the bridge. The aged clump of willows on the banks below the falls was still there, picturesque. Beside the bridge was a neatly hand-lettered sign, WILMONT.

“But look, Watts!” I exclaimed. “It says ‘Wilmont!'”

Watts laughed and said it had been put up by that WPA; and then he mumbled a couple of descriptive adjectives which did the WPA no good, and added, as usual, “Excuse me, Reverend.”

Little Wilmot, which the WPA, with its recognized talent for ineptitudes, had renamed Wilmont, was not much larger than when we had lived there. A garage and filling station had been added. A half-dozen flat-bottomed, homemade boats were pulled up along the shore of the pond. Occasionally someone catches a few blue-gills, Watts said. The old Ryder mill had burned down, leaving an ugly scar.

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