My father was well liked in the rural churches. The sermons he preached, which were marked less by evangelical fervor than by a calm exhortation of God’s unbounded grace, were well received by congregations composed primarily of sensible farm families who in most aspects of their public lives were as emotionally demonstrative as a mound of hay. He was also gifted in inspiring the church committees that were a part of every Methodist congregation. Most weekday evenings he was gone from the house attending some committee meeting in Cadbury or New Bremen or Fosburg, the site of his third charge. He was ceaseless in the execution of what he saw as his duty and if he was often absent as a father that was part of the price of his calling.
Cadbury lay in a hollow along Sioux Creek which was a tributary to the Minnesota River. As you crested the highway that dropped into town you were greeted by the sight of three church steeples rising above a thick green gathering of trees. Cadbury Methodist was the nearest of these steeples. From the front of the church you could look down the main street which was two blocks of businesses that in the boom of the post–World War Two years had prospered. The church was shaded by several tall elms and on summer mornings when we arrived the sanctuary was cool and quiet. My father unlocked the building and went to the office and Ariel went to the organ and my mother went to the choir room. Jake and I were responsible for putting out the offering plates for the ushers and if the sanctuary was stuffy we opened the windows. Then we sat in the back row and waited as the congregation gathered and the choir assembled.
That morning shortly before the service was to begin my mother came out from the choir room and stood near the altar and scanned the sanctuary with a concerned look on her face.
She came to me and said, “Have you seen Mrs. Klement?”
I told her no.
“Go outside and watch for her. If you see her coming, let me know right away.”
I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
I walked outside and Jake came with me and we stood looking both ways down the street. Mrs. Klement was the woman with the strong alto voice. She was my mother’s age and had a son named Peter who was twelve years old. Because his mother sang in the choir Peter was orphaned during the service and he usually sat with Jake and me. His father never came to church and I’d gathered through conversations I’d overheard that he was not much inclined toward religion but was a man of unfortunate excesses who could have benefited from a bit of good solid Methodist discipline.
While we watched for Mrs. Klement a number of the congregation passed us on their way into the church and greeted us with pleasant familiarity. A man named Thaddeus Porter who was the town banker and a widower and who walked with a regal gait strode up to us and stopped and clasped his hands behind his back and looked down on us as a general might during inspection of his troops.
“I heard you boys found yourselves a dead body,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“Quite a remarkable discovery.”
“Yes, sir, it was.”
“You seem well recovered.”
“The truth is, sir, it didn’t bother me much.”
“Ah,” he said and nodded as if not being much bothered wasn’t a bad thing. “Nerves of steel, eh? I’ll see you boys inside.” He turned from us and with measured strides mounted the steps.
Mrs. Klement never showed that Sunday morning nor did Peter. The anthem and the offertory hymn, my mother said afterward, suffered greatly due to her absence. After the service we stayed briefly for the social time in the church fellowship hall during which I was questioned a good deal about the dead man Jake and I had found. Each time I repeated the story I embellished it just a bit more and as a result suffered Jake’s disapproving scowl. So much so that by the last telling I’d made him little more than a footnote in the tale.
When my father had finished with the final service that day, which was held at noon in the church in Fosburg a dozen miles north of New Bremen, he drove us all home. As always it felt as if I’d just spent a long time in hell and had finally been granted a divine pardon. I raced to my bedroom and changed my clothes and got ready to enjoy the rest of the day. When I went downstairs I found my mother in the kitchen pulling food from the refrigerator. She’d put together a tuna casserole and Jell-O salad the night before which I figured would be our dinner. My father entered the kitchen after me and it was clear he thought so too. He said, “Dinner?”
“Not for us,” my mother replied. “It’s for Amelia Klement. The ladies of the choir told me that she was quite ill and that was why she didn’t come to church today.” She pushed my father aside and walked to the counter with the pan of tuna casserole in hand. She said, “Amelia’s life is a prison cell presided over by Travis Klement, who, if he isn’t the worst husband in the world, is certainly in the running. She’s told me more times than I can count that choir practice on Wednesday and church on Sunday are the two things she looks forward to most in a week. If she couldn’t make it to church today, she must be very ill, and I intend to see that she doesn’t have to worry about feeding her family. I’m going to finish this casserole, and then I’m going to deliver it, and you’re coming with me.”
“What about our dinner?” This slipped from my lips before I had a chance to think about the advisability of asking.
My mother gave me a scathing look. “You won’t starve. I’ll put something together.”
The truth was that it was fine with me. I wasn’t at all fond of tuna casserole. And I thought that if she and my father were driving out to Peter Klement’s house I might go along and tell Peter about the dead man. I was really warming to the effect this story seemed to have on those who heard it.
Ariel came into the kitchen dressed for work at the country club.
My mother asked, “Would you like a sandwich before you go?”
“No, I’ll grab something when I get there.” Ariel lingered and leaned against the counter and said, “What if I didn’t go to Juilliard this fall?”
My father who’d plucked a banana from the bunch on the top of the refrigerator and was peeling it said, “We’d send you to work in the salt mines instead.”
“I mean,” Ariel said, “it would be cheaper if I went to Mankato State.”
“You’re on a scholarship,” my father pointed out and stuffed a good third of the banana into his mouth.
“I know, but you and Mom will still have to pay a lot.”
“Let us worry about that,” my father said.
“I could continue to study with Emil Brandt. He’s as good as anyone at Juilliard.”
Emil Brandt had been Ariel’s teacher since we’d come to New Bremen five years before. He was in fact much of the reason we’d come. My mother wanted Ariel to study with the best composer and pianist in Minnesota and that was Brandt. He happened also to be my mother’s good friend since childhood.