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Authors: Howard Frank Mosher
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start, the upcoming Republican presidential primary, and Charlieâs town teamâs sweep of the Memphremagog Basketball Tournament.
Everyone, that is, but my father, who, besides loathing all small talk, attended church and served on the board of trustees strictly from a sense of community responsibility. âLetâs get this show on the road, Ruth,â he said as we headed up the steps.
Just inside the door, Cousin Elijah Kinneson, now demoted to usher from his former Sunday morning incarnation as lay preacher, handed my father and mother a program. My father took another one and gave it to me. âCanât tell the players without one,â he said.
My mother smiled. I laughed out loud. Cousin Elijah, however, scowled like a constipated parody of his Biblical namesake. Even this morning Elijah emitted a faint sulphurous odor compounded of the hot lead he worked with, stale sweat, and some ineffable but to me quite real essence of universal disapprobation. Yet his unabated disapproval of all boys in general and me in particular was nothing compared to the absolute hatred he bore for his ex-brothers Resolvèd and Welcome, whom he had publicly disowned some years ago with a paid notice in the
Monitor
to the effect that he would no longer acknowledge blood ties with these unregenerate men. Shortly after this unusual announcement, in one of the practical jokes for which he was renowned, Charlie had sneaked into the
Monitor
while Cousin E was enthroned at his linotype and taped to the back of his seat a large placard, visible from the street, which said: RESOLVÃD AND WELCOME KINNESON ARE MY OWN BLOOD BROTHERS AND IâM DAMN PROUD OF IT.
Thinking of Charlie, who at that very moment was fishing the rainbow trout run and maybe already onto a big one, the throbbing tip of his bamboo rod bowed to the riverâs surface, I trudged morosely up the uncarpeted central aisle of the church behind my folks and turned into the pew five rows back on the left where Kinnesons had planked down for the past century and a half to have their spiritual needs ministered to.
Except for the addition of an organ, the interior of the church had changed very little since the days of Charles I. The windows were plain glass, wavy now and lavendered from time, but without any trace of ornamentation and purposely set too high for the seated congregation to see out of. The wainscoting below them, the pews, the pulpit, and the wooden ceiling were all painted a flat white. On the walls there hung no pictures of any kind. Even the likenesses of Jesus and the disciples had been deemed to smack vaguely of the idolatrous by Charles I and the six other original member families of the church, whose descendants had insisted that this happy tradition be continued to the present day. And although the Presbyterian Church had been a United Protestant Church for sixteen years, with the stipulation that the minister must be an ordained Presbyterian clergyman, not so much as a single small blue crocus brightened its alter this Easter morning as the worshipers trooped in and sat down to the lugubrious strains of Julia âHeftyâ Hefnerâs organ prelude.
The church was by no means full. Still, there were easily one hundred people in attendance today, half again as many as Cousin Elijah had ever drawn in his capacity as lay preacher. Some, no doubt, were there simply because it was Easter. But many must have come to view the curiosity of a minister who was not only the first full-time incumbent in two years but black as well, since no black family had lived in Kingdom County within recent memory.
Anyone who expected Reverend Andrews to say or do much that was out of the ordinary must have been disappointed. He began by thanking the congregation for welcoming him and his son so warmly. (Nathan had slipped in alone and slouched down at the end of the pew across from ours just before the service began.) Reverend Andrews added that if he
Everyone, that is, but my father, who, besides loathing all small talk, attended church and served on the board of trustees strictly from a sense of community responsibility. âLetâs get this show on the road, Ruth,â he said as we headed up the steps.
Just inside the door, Cousin Elijah Kinneson, now demoted to usher from his former Sunday morning incarnation as lay preacher, handed my father and mother a program. My father took another one and gave it to me. âCanât tell the players without one,â he said.
My mother smiled. I laughed out loud. Cousin Elijah, however, scowled like a constipated parody of his Biblical namesake. Even this morning Elijah emitted a faint sulphurous odor compounded of the hot lead he worked with, stale sweat, and some ineffable but to me quite real essence of universal disapprobation. Yet his unabated disapproval of all boys in general and me in particular was nothing compared to the absolute hatred he bore for his ex-brothers Resolvèd and Welcome, whom he had publicly disowned some years ago with a paid notice in the
Monitor
to the effect that he would no longer acknowledge blood ties with these unregenerate men. Shortly after this unusual announcement, in one of the practical jokes for which he was renowned, Charlie had sneaked into the
Monitor
while Cousin E was enthroned at his linotype and taped to the back of his seat a large placard, visible from the street, which said: RESOLVÃD AND WELCOME KINNESON ARE MY OWN BLOOD BROTHERS AND IâM DAMN PROUD OF IT.
Thinking of Charlie, who at that very moment was fishing the rainbow trout run and maybe already onto a big one, the throbbing tip of his bamboo rod bowed to the riverâs surface, I trudged morosely up the uncarpeted central aisle of the church behind my folks and turned into the pew five rows back on the left where Kinnesons had planked down for the past century and a half to have their spiritual needs ministered to.
Except for the addition of an organ, the interior of the church had changed very little since the days of Charles I. The windows were plain glass, wavy now and lavendered from time, but without any trace of ornamentation and purposely set too high for the seated congregation to see out of. The wainscoting below them, the pews, the pulpit, and the wooden ceiling were all painted a flat white. On the walls there hung no pictures of any kind. Even the likenesses of Jesus and the disciples had been deemed to smack vaguely of the idolatrous by Charles I and the six other original member families of the church, whose descendants had insisted that this happy tradition be continued to the present day. And although the Presbyterian Church had been a United Protestant Church for sixteen years, with the stipulation that the minister must be an ordained Presbyterian clergyman, not so much as a single small blue crocus brightened its alter this Easter morning as the worshipers trooped in and sat down to the lugubrious strains of Julia âHeftyâ Hefnerâs organ prelude.
The church was by no means full. Still, there were easily one hundred people in attendance today, half again as many as Cousin Elijah had ever drawn in his capacity as lay preacher. Some, no doubt, were there simply because it was Easter. But many must have come to view the curiosity of a minister who was not only the first full-time incumbent in two years but black as well, since no black family had lived in Kingdom County within recent memory.
Anyone who expected Reverend Andrews to say or do much that was out of the ordinary must have been disappointed. He began by thanking the congregation for welcoming him and his son so warmly. (Nathan had slipped in alone and slouched down at the end of the pew across from ours just before the service began.) Reverend Andrews added that if he
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