The Well-Wishers by Edward Eager

Author:Edward Eager [Eager, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780152020712
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 1960-04-18T01:22:39+00:00

5. Kip Carries On

This is Kip telling the story now. The reason this part of it belongs to me is that I was the only one of us in church that Sunday.

Not that James and Laura and Deborah don't usually come, but that morning their father had forgotten to set the alarm clock. That would have been a mere nothing to me. I can always make myself wake up exactly when I want to. I do it by concentrating before I go to sleep.

But James and Laura have never been able to work that trick. I think they let other thoughts creep in, which you must never do.

As for Gordy, his mother makes him go to a different church, a big rich one in the village.

But the rest of us like the little old-fashioned country church nearby better, at least Laura and James and Deborah and I do. Lydia says she doesn't need organized religion, and that a person can pray anywhere. This is true, I know, because I have prayed in some peculiar places, like the time I was painting the house and nearly fell off the roof. But for me, church helps.

So there I was that Sunday morning, not thinking anything but church thoughts, and certainly not about the magic or expecting an adventure to begin. And then Mr. Chenoweth, our minister, came to that part of the service when he makes announcements.

Only today he didn't talk about the vestrymen's meeting or the choir or the Young People's Club. He took off his spectacles and looked at the congregation. Then he said, "What I have to tell you today is not church business. Or perhaps it is."

And he went on to say that he had heard of a family that was about to move into the neighborhood. "I think some of you may know the one I mean," he said. And he gave the congregation another long look.

I don't remember his exact words after that. But what they amounted to was that some people apparently didn't want this family to move in. They didn't want it so much that they were getting up a petition about it. Mr. Chenoweth did not say why.

But he said, "This does not seem to me to be Christian behavior. So I myself have drawn up a statement welcoming these new arrivals to our coramunity. Those who wish to sign it with me may do so after the service. Or it will be in my study at the rectory at any time. And now let us join in singing the One Hundred and Thirty-third Psalm."

If you do not know that psalm, it is the one that begins, "Behold hoW good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity."

And then Mr. Chenoweth preached a sermon on the text, "Love thy neighbor." I thought he said some pretty good things. But all the time he was saying them, there was a buzzing undertone of people talking to each other, which is something I would know better than to do during a sermon.

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