John Wesley, Jr. Part 14

On the next Sunday morning J.W. drove out of town in time to get to the little old church of his childhood for morning service. Then he would go home with the Shenks for dinner, spend the afternoon, get the books and come home when he was ready. There was no hurry. J.W., Sr., had given him two Sundays' leave of absence from Sunday school. The next Sunday would be his and Marty's, but this would be his and Jeannette's.

Not that he needed to make any special plans for being with Jeannette Shenk; of late he had found the half hour drive down to the old farm the prelude to a pleasant evening. Sometimes he would make the round trip twice, running out to bring Jeanette into town, when something was going on, and taking her home afterward in the immemorial fashion.

As J.W. turned to the church yard lane leading up to the old horseshed, he noticed that there were only two cars there besides his own--and one old-time sidebar buggy, battered and mud-bedaubed, with a decrepit and dejected-looking gray mare between the shafts.

It was time for meeting, and he contrasted to-day's emptiness of the long sheds with the crowding vehicles of his childhood memories. In those days so tightly were buggies and surries and democrats, and even spring wagons and an occasional sulky wedged into the s.p.a.ce, that it was nothing unusual for the sermon to be interrupted by an uproar in the sheds, when some peevish horse attempted to set its teeth in the neck of a neighbor, with a resultant squealing and plunging, a cramping of wheels and a rattle of harness which could neutralize the most vociferous circuit rider's eloquence.

At the door, J.W. fell in with the little group of men, who, according to ancient custom, had waited in the yard for the announcement of the first hymn before ending their talk of crops and roads and stock, and joining the women and children within.

Inside the contrast with the older day was even more striking. The church, small as it was, seemed almost empty. The Shenks were there, including Jeannette, as J.W. promptly managed to observe. Father Foltz and his middle-aged daughter stood in their accustomed place; they had come in the venerable sidebar buggy, just as for two decades past.

Mother Foltz hadn't been out of the house in years, and among J.W.'s earliest recollections were those of the cottage prayer meetings that he had attended with his father in Mrs. Foltz's speckless sickroom. Then there were the four Newells, and Mrs. Bellamy, and Mr. and Mrs. Haggard with their two little girls, and a few people J.W. did not know--perhaps twenty-five altogether. No wonder the preacher was disheartened, and preached a flavorless sermon.

Where were the boys and girls of even a dozen years ago? where the children who began their Sunday school career in the little recess back of the curtain? and where the whole families that once filled the place?

Surely, old Deep Creek Church had fallen on evil days.

It was a dismal service, with its dreary sermon and its tuneless hymns.

After the benediction J.W. shook hands with the preacher, whom he knew slightly, and exchanged greetings with all the old friends.

"Well, John Wesley," said Father Foltz, with glum garrulity, "this ain't the church you used to know when you was little. I mind in them times when you folks lived on the farm how we thought we'd have to enlarge the meetinghouse. But it's a good thing we never done it. There's room enough now," and the old man indulged in a mirthless, toothless grimace.

The Shenks didn't invite him to dinner; their understanding was finer than that. Pa Shenk just said, "Let me drive out first, John Wesley; I'll go on ahead and open the gate," And J.W. said to Jeannette, "Jump into my car, Jean; it isn't fair to put everybody into Pa Shenk's Ford when mine's younger and nearly empty."

So that was that; all regular and comfortable and proper. If Mrs. Newell smiled as she watched them drive away, what of it? She was heard to say to Mrs. Bellamy, "I've known for three years that those two ought to wake up and fall in love with each other, and they've been slower than Father Foltz's old gray mare. But it looks as though they were getting their eyes open at last."

At the farm Mrs. Shenk hurried to finish up the dinner preparations, with Jeannette to help. Ben and little Alice contended for J.W.'s favor, until he took Alice on his knee and put one arm about her and the other about her brother, standing by the chair. And Pa Shenk talked about the church.

"I reckon I shouldn't complain, John Wesley," he said, "seeing that our Marty is a country preacher, and maybe he'll be having to handle a job like this some time. But I can't believe he will. His letters don't read like it."

"But, Pa Shenk," said J.W., "don't you suppose the trouble here in Deep Creek is because you're so near town? Nine miles is nothing these days, but when you first came to the farm there was only one automobile in the township. Now everybody can go into town to church."

"They can, boy," Pa Shenk answered, "but they don't. Not all of 'em.

Some don't care enough to go anywhere. One-year tenants, mostly, they are. Some go to town, all right enough, but not to church. A few go to church, I admit, but only a few."

J.W. started to speak, hesitated, then blurted it out. "Maybe dad and others like him are responsible for some of the trouble. They've pulled out and left just a few to carry the load. You're all right, of course; you really belong here. But a lot of the farmers who have moved to town have rented their places to what you call one-year tenants, and it seems to me that's a poor way to build up anything in the country, churches or anything else. Tenants that are always moving don't get to know anybody or to count for anything. It's not much wonder they are no use to the church."

"There's a good deal in that, John Wesley," said Pa Shenk. "Your father and me, we get along fine. We're more like partners than owner and tenant. But it isn't so with these short-term renters. The owner raises the rent as the price of land rises, and the tenant is mostly too poor to do anything much after he's paid the rent. Besides, he's got no stake in the neighborhood. Why should he pay to help build a new church, when he's got to move the first of March? And the church has been as careless about him as he has been about the church."

"That's what bothers me," J.W. commented. "But even so, I should think something could be done to interest these folks. They've all got families to bring up."

"Something can be done, too," said Pa Shenk. "You remember when the people on upper Deep Creek used to come here to church, four miles or so? Well, now they are going to Fairfield Church--owners, renters, everybody. It's surprising how Fairfield Church is growing. That's going away from town, not to it, and they're as near to town as we are."

"Then," persisted J.W., "how do you account for it?"

"Only one way, my boy," said Pa Shenk. "I'm as much to blame as any, but we've had some preachers here that didn't seem to understand, and then lately we've had preachers who stayed in town all the time except on preaching Sunday, and we scarcely saw or heard of 'em all the two weeks between. They haven't held protracted meetings for several years, and I ain't blaming 'em. What's the use of holding meetings when you know n.o.body's coming except people that were converted before our present pastor was born?"

"You say some people are going over to Fairfield?" asked J.W. "Why do they go there, when they could go to town about as easy?"

"Well, John Wesley," Pa Shenk answered, soberly. "I think I know. But you say you're going to spend next Sunday with Marty. From what Marty writes I've a notion it's much the same on his work as it is at Fairfield, except that Marty has two points. Wait till next week, and then come back and tell us how you explain the difference between Deep Creek Church and Ellis."

In the afternoon Jeannette and J.W. took a ride around the neighborhood, whose every tree and culvert and rural mail-box they knew, without in the least being tired of seeing it. Their talk was on an old, old subject, and not remarkable, yet somehow it was more to them both than any poet's rhapsody. And their occasional silences were no less eloquent.

But in a more than usually prosaic moment Jeannette said, "John Wesley, I wonder if there's any hope to get the Deep Creek young people interested in church the way they used to be? I'm just hungry for the sort of good times the older boys and girls used to have when you and Marty and I were nothing but children. They enjoyed themselves, and so did everybody else. What's the matter with so many country churches, nowadays?"

To which question J.W. could only answer: "I don't know. I didn't realize things were so bad here. Maybe I'll get some ideas about it next Sat.u.r.day and Sunday. Your father seems to think Marty is getting started on the right track. And that reminds me; don't let me go away without those books he wants, will you?"

This is not a record of that Sunday afternoon's drive, nor of the many others which followed on other Sundays and on the days between. Some other time there may be opportunity for the whole story of Jeannette and J.W.

As J.W. drove up to Ellis Corners post office late the next Friday afternoon Marty waylaid him and demanded to be taken aboard. "Drive a half-mile further east," he said after their boisterous greetings.

"That's where we eat to-night--at Ambery's. Then just across the road to the church. We've got something special on."

"A box supper," asked J.W., "or a bean-bag party?" But he knew better.

Marty told him to wait and see. Supper was a pleasant meal, the Amberys being pleasant people, who lived in a cozy new house. But J.W. was mystified to hear Marty speak of Henry Ambery as a retired farmer. He knew retired farmers in town, plenty of them, and some no happier for being there. But in the country?

"Oh," said Marty, "that's easy. Our church is the social hub of all this community, and I told the Amberys that if they built here they would be as well off as in town. I'm right too. They bought two acres for less than the price of a town lot, and they have most of the farm comforts as well as all the modern conveniences. You didn't notice any signs of homesickness, did you?"

No, J.W., hadn't, though he knew the retired-farmer sort of homesickness when he saw it.

"And the Amberys are worth more to the church than they ever were,"

Marty added. "I'm thinking of a scheme to colonize two or three other retiring farmers within easy reach of this church. Why not? They've got cars, and can drive to the county seat in an hour if they want to.

That's better than living there all the time, with nothing to do."

By this the two were at the church, a pretty frame building, L-shaped, with a community house adjoining the auditorium. People were beginning to arrive in all sorts of vehicles--cars, mostly. J.W. looked for signs of a feed, but vainly. No spread tables, no smell of cooking or rattle of dishes from the kitchen.

"What is it, Marty?" he asked. And Marty laughed as he answered, "Old-fashioned singing school, with some new-fashioned variations, that's all." Certainly it was something which interested the countryside, for there was every indication of a crowded house.

J.W. heard the singing and noted with high approval the variations which modernized the old order. He thought the idea plenty good enough even for Delafield, which, for him, left nothing more to be said. And there _was_ a feed, after all; but it was distinctly light refreshments, such as J.W. was used to at Delafield First Church.

On the way back to the Amberys', and well into the night in Marty's room, they talked about the circuit and its work.

"It isn't a circuit, rightly, you know," Marty said. "I preach every Sunday at both places, and for the present"--J.W. grinned--"I can get across the whole parish every day if necessary. But I'm working it a little more systematically than that."

"You must be. I can hardly believe even what I've seen already," J.W.

replied. "When I was at Deep Creek last Sunday I was sure it was all off with the country church, and on the way down here I pa.s.sed three abandoned meetinghouses. So I made up my mind to persuade you out of it.

You know I wasn't much in favor of your coming here in the first place.

But maybe that's a bigger job than I thought."

"You're right, John Wesley, about that. I don't budge, if I can make myself big enough for the job. It's too interesting. And things are happening. There's no danger of this church being abandoned."

"But what do you do, Marty, to make things happen? I know they don't just happen. I'm from the country too, remember that."

"What do I do? Not 'I' but 'we.' Well, we work with our heads first, and our hearts. Then we get out and go at it. Take our very first social difficulty; in Delafield you have a dozen places to go to. Here it's either the church or the schoolhouse--that's all the choice there is.

And the schoolhouse has its limitations. So our folks have decided to make the church, both here and at Valencia, the center of the community.

That explains the social hall; we call it 'Community House.' Everything that goes on, except the barn dances over east that we can't do much with so far, goes on in the church, or starts with the church, or ends at the church. That's the first scheme we put over. It was fairly easy, you know, because all our country people are pretty much one lot. We have no rich, and no really poor. And they're not organized to death, either, as you are in Delafield."

"Do you try to have something going on every night, and nearly every day, as Brother Drury does with us?" J.W. asked.