Return to the Earth by Donald J. Richardson

Author:Donald J. Richardson [Richardson, Donald J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781728367750
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2020-07-23T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I didn’t go to church every Sunday in Union. Of course when I was in the War, there was no church, and I imagine few of us actually wanted to go to church. Church represented a type of escape from life, or it had earlier in life, but now—all we wanted was for the War to end. Let’s have an end to it; maybe then we can get back to going to church and trying to pretend that man could be benevolent to man. It certainly wasn’t obvious when we saw all those wounded and dead bodies. War was obscenity which we lived with on a daily basis; it didn’t seem to have room for church at all.

I knew that Merton Gronsteadt conducted services every Sunday at ten o’clock. I had heard there was something called Sunday school at nine, but that I never attended. The church service was pleasant, but the few times I had gone, it had seemed like an excursion into a foreign country, as if I didn’t actually belong there. There was also a young people’s group which met Sunday evenings, I understood, and there I could have talked to Melissa, the preacher’s daughter, but I felt she was too young for me or I was too old for her—the Civil War aged the men who survived it, and it wasn’t a pleasant aging.

One Sunday morning Ma Baker asked me, “You going to church today, Wade?”

I didn’t remember that we had ever talked about religion before this, so the question took me by surprise.

“Are you concerned for my soul?” I asked.

“Now, Wade, don’t get snippy with me. I’s just wondering if you’re going.”

“I suppose I could. If I felt the need. Do you think I need to feel the need, Ma?”

“Wade, I’m not so concerned about your soul as I am about your social life. You don’t have one to speak of.”

Of course, Ma was right. My social life would have been a match for one of those eremites I had read about in the dark ages, the kind who secluded themselves from all of life and lived only to pray and punish themselves.

“And you think I can become more social by going to hear Preacher Gronsteadt preach?” As I was somewhat skeptical, I imagine the tone of my voice communicated this.

“No, Wade, you don’t understand. There’s to be a hayride tonight. You ought to go on it. Everybody’s invited.”

“A hayride.”

“Yes, a hayride. Might do you good to get out.”

“I’d probably be the oldest one there.”

“No, I hear everyone’s invited. Grandparents and children, everyone. You ought to go. Maybe you’d meet somebody—.”

“You’re trying to get rid of me, aren’t you, Ma?”

“Now Wade, I’m not trying to get rid of you. It’s just that a young man like yourself ought to be living more, more than patrolling the streets of Union as the sheriff and sweating over in that blacksmith shop. And you might meet someone—.”

“So you are trying to get rid of me, aren’t you?” This I said with a smile.

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