SO SIMPLE THE CHOICE

 

Pete Germaine knew something was wrong as soon as he walked into Father Bill Delcoe’s office in St. Simon’s.  Immediately, Father Bill’s stare, reptilian in its shocking coldness, jarred him into the realization that he should have paid attention to that tiny twitch of misgiving he felt when he found, posted on his office door, the new pastor’s curt, “You have a meeting with me today at 3:30.”

Pete Germaine was the kind of man who did what was right day after day.  No fanfare.  Just a dogged pursuit of duty.  He had left the seminary just before ordination, choosing, after a three-year hitch in the army, to return to the family farm.

For the last eight years he had been employed as the Religious Formation Coordinator at St. Simon’s.  He could honestly say that he had lived a life of obedience to God, to his country, and to the parish, something he attributed as much to the army as to his religion.   He was proud of the fact that he always went the extra mile.

Now he was hearing Father Bill say, “I don’t know who you are. I am concerned about some of your work in the parish and in the community.”

No other introduction.   Then that chilling stare.  Was he supposed to say something?  He waited.

He knew he was doing good work and was respected for his ministry.

“You will have to discontinue your hospital ministry,” Father Bill continued.

“My hospital ministry?”

“I’ve done some checking and I have talked to some people.  I have also been in contact with the canon lawyers in the chancery office.  We are concerned that you are posing as a priest and doing ministry only priests can do.”

Unbidden thoughts crossed Pete’s mind.  Then why are there no priests around to do it?  Why don’t those who are here do the work?  Why do they have unlisted phone numbers?  But Pete said nothing.  He thought of the many people whom he had served in their dying moments, of those to whom he had brought the Lord in Communion, praying with them, and assuring them of the love of the all-forgiving God.  He had slipped into this work so gradually that it seemed the natural thing to do.

“You will also stop doing funeral services of any kind.”  The priest was now no longer looking at him.   “You will no longer do any Communion services in church or any preaching.  You will confine yourself to administrative tasks only, and coordinate the catechetical program of the children.  That is all we have in your original job description.”

“You mean I can’t. . .”

“Yes.  I say you must stop all other ministry as of now.”

Pete was painfully aware that his fatigued clothing and pudgy form must have been a poor vehicle for God when compared to the elegantly pressed black suit and the pure white Roman collar of the ordained priest.

For a moment he thought, how odd it was that he ever imagined that his knobby workman hands could be vehicles of sacramental grace when compared to the meticulously manicured and anointed hands of Father Bill, hands now indulgently stroking a gold pen, now making powerful pyramids. Years of pride in his ministry evaporated from Pete in less than ten minutes.  He felt contaminated somehow, as if he had betrayed his values in his work.  In those few minutes this arrogant man upset his sense of fulfillment and turned it into vainglorious pride.

But Pete’s mind refused to stop there.  Does God’s grace flow only as if by magic through the stark formulas of the Roman Ritual and the speck of oil on the sacred thumb of the ordained priest?   Did he not experience God at work in his loving touch when he rubbed great gobs of the holy oils into the forehead and hands and feet of the sick while praying for healing of body, mind, and spirit?  Did not God’s word flow from his lips and from his heart when he conducted funeral services for people who had turned away from the church?

“You mean to destroy me, don’t you?”  Pete blurted it out before thinking, before considering what effect this might have.  He should have remained silent.

“Are you questioning my authority?” Father Bill demanded angrily.  “May I remind you that the Scripture clearly says that Jesus gave the power of the sacraments only to priests.  You are acting in heresy when you use the holy oils or the ritual as if you had the power of the priesthood.  He who hears you hears me, Jesus said.  The authority of the magisterium of the Catholic Church has always taught this.”

The priest finished,  “You must listen to me to find the will of God for your ministry.  I expect you to obey me without question.  If you do not, you have two weeks notice as of today.  A letter will be in your mail to that effect later today.”

Pete left the office in confusion, drained of courage or resolve.  At 75 years of age, with a semi-invalid wife, and no savings, he felt he could not begin again.  But could he work under the authority of a petty tyrant like this and retain any sense of honesty?  He rushed to the church and knelt before the altar in deep anguish.  The lingering scent of incense heightened his acute awareness of the divine presence.  “Tell me, Lord Jesus, what am I to do now?”

The answer came swiftly, without a trace of ambiguity.  This was not about Peter Germaine doing priestly work.  This was all about power and control.  He had roused the sleeping giant of the clerical establishment.  He had never imagined that some day, today, he would be choosing between Jesus Christ and his church authority.  Yet, here it was, so stark, so clear, so simple.

The rush of gladness and freedom caught Pete by surprise.  Hope burst forth in a mighty surge as the words of Jesus struck home.

“Do not worry yourself at all about having enough food and clothing.  Those without faith are always running after these things.  You have no need to be concerned about them.  Your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will see that you have enough.  So don’t be anxious about tomorrow.  God will take care of your tomorrow too.  Live one day at a time.”

Pete could not wait to go home to tell Clara that they were now free to pursue their dream of returning to a simpler life on the farm.

 

 

REQUIEM AETERNAM

 

Matt Hermann turned for one final, painful look at the little log cabin before it disappeared behind a gentle rise in the prairie road.  What he found so unbearably hard to accept was that he had actually survived the terrible drought in spite of losing his first farm and falling into the trap of renting a quarter section of submarginal land.

Now he experienced defeat just when the rains had returned with the promise of prosperity.  The crops he had harvested with the help of his neighbors paid all his outstanding debts.  His defeat came from something far more frightening, more final than the quirks of weather, something he could not fight against.  He had to give up farming, stop working altogether.

No amount of natural optimism could replace the conviction that without his farming, his labor, his large family would face hardship and poverty that would make the drought seem like a perpetual picnic.

Why did life have to deal him a losing hand?  It was not fair.  He flicked the reins rather too harshly on the rumps of the team of horses he had borrowed, and the grain wagon, loaded with poor and simple household goods, lurched forward a little faster in the direction of Lake Sand where it had all begun.

Matt paid more attention to the land than usual.  Most of the farmlands had been harvested.  Some had already begun their fall cultivation.  Poplars sported bright yellow suits now.  In a few days the wind would blow the leaves away, and the colors would be gone.  Berry trees among the bushes sported reds and rich browns.  He loved the gentle curves of small hills, the glorious blue of a small body of water along the road.  He caught his breath in admiration as a sleek deer bounded across the road in front of him, jumped effortlessly over a fence, and made for a small poplar grove.  Maybe this would be the last time he would travel this road, he mused ruefully.

At least he was going home, and the children could go to school regularly and be taught by the Sisters.  And the parish priest would be handy when the time came.

Like so many other Minnesota farmers, the Hermann family migrated to the rolling plains of Saskatchewan shortly after the turn of the century when dryland farming had proven itself, and when the world began its clamor for number one hard Canadian wheat.  Aspen groves and clear fresh water lakes alternated with long prairie grass and promised to yield magnificent harvests year after year.

The Lake Sand homesteaders had experienced a few years of light summer rainfall, but the heavy yellow clay of the subsoil held enough moisture to sustain reasonable crops.  With generous snowfall and normal rains the following year, the land produced as if there had been no interruption in the moisture cycle.

But a sustained drought was another matter.  Drained of moisture, the subsoil turned hard as rock.  Most farmers had overworked their land, and the once rich black loam turned into gray powder.  Helplessly, the farmers watched the wind drift their land into foot-high banks around every clump of thistle.  Great dust storms lifted the soil and bore it eastward, God only knew where.

Matt’s father had arrived with the first wave of immigrants.  Something of a patriarch, he doled out a quarter section to each son as he married.  But he failed to attend to such legal niceties as transferring title to the land.  What did it matter?  It was all in the family.

Matt did not know that his father had taken a private mortgage on his quarter even though a government mortgage was available.

“No, Hank,” the wealthy Kusch patriarch had insisted.  “You can’t trust those government deals.  They’ll cut you right off, and you’ll lose your land.  You know how they hate us Catholics out here.  I’ll mortgage your land.  You can trust me.”

But when hard times came and the Hermanns defaulted on two consecutive payments, Bernard Kusch foreclosed.  He would hear of no alternatives.  So Matt’s quarter with its grey little house and the log outbuildings all went to young Bill Kusch.

In time Matt found a somewhat abandoned quarter section of land about thirteen miles from Lake Sand.  It had no buildings, with only sixty acres open.  On the south side was a large depression which in normal years would be a slough.  A gentle ravine cut diagonally across the north side.  Nothing like the lost quarter, but it was something.

But Matt was not one to dwell on bitter thoughts.  Kind new neighbors came for three days in a row to help build a log house on the south bank of the ravine.  How they struggled and sweat with the not-too-straight poplar logs to make them fit together!

Before long the family came to appreciate the generosity of bachelor Mike Bilter across the road.  How many times he rescued a meal with a prize specimen from his huge vegetable garden.

And in the east bush live old Paul Erlinder, trapper, almost hermit.  He never tired to showing the boys his well-used traps and the smelly skins of rabbits, weasels, and skunks hanging stretched over boards on every spare nail inside and outside his untidy cabin.

And his wife.  What a sweetheart Laura was!  Never did she breathe a word of complaint, even when she could have blamed him for tinkering with a harness or whittling a toy when he could have been out chopping wood to sell or trade for a bag of flour or sugar.  She pitched in with every fiber of her neat little body so often big with his children.

Matt Hermann had always taken pride in his own body too.  Hardened by work, his muscles stood out firmly on his arms and back and chest.  His well-shaped hands could be as gentle as they were strong.  People instinctively took to Matt, not only for his handsome good looks, but for the quiet honesty and frankness that seemed to surround him like an aura.

The second summer at Minkle proved especially heartbreaking.  No other description would do.  The one-room log house, separated only by blankets, presented more and more problems for a family now numbering six children.

The barley just in front of the house came up as if miraculously from the caked soil.  Time after time the wind-driven dust sheared it off at ground level.  And the thin growth of late July, barely seven inches tall in most places, headed out even more thinly.

“The roots must go down half a mile,”  he told Laura one evening as they locked arms while staring at a crop that would yield little more than seed for next year, and perhaps a bit of feed for the few animals Matt had decided to keep.  Certainly they would not be able to begin to pay debts this year.

But the summer was not all unhappiness.  Matt followed up on a remark he heard one Sunday after Mass and found a few days work at clearing brush for a new farmer.  As payment he accepted a small pony.  A thrill of pride swelled through him when he saw the faces of the boys as they caught sight of him leading it homeward up the road.

“Can I ride her?”

“Can I lead her home?”

She shied only a very little bit as hands reached out to pet her velvet nose and sides.

“Is she really ours, Daddy?”  They couldn’t believe such luck.

“Yeap.  But you’ll have to look after her.  Careful there, Johnny.  Let her get used to you first.”

Gentle Bessie joined Boss in the pasture behind the barn, where they soon became inseparable companions.  The two older boys, now seven and eight, would no longer have to walk the three and a half miles to Lang Valley School.

One particularly hot afternoon several weeks later, Laura was kneading bread in her big enamel bowl.  Suddenly she looked up.  Something felt wrong outside.  She wrung the flour from her hands as she hurriedly checked the two little girls playing contentedly with colored yarns in the corner near the crib where the baby slept.

With mounting fear, she opened the door.  The day’s brightness had fled.  She found the boys across the creek, their play interrupted as they fixed their attention on the western sky.  They headed for the house.  High, dark whirlwinds scuttled and bounced across the fields.  She called for them to hurry, anxiously wondering where Matt was.  They had talked about disking some new breaking.

A sudden gust of hot wind whipped her apron and skirt up around her legs.  Dust bit harshly into her face, her legs, her arms, as, in mother-hen fashion, she rounded up her brood.

“No, Danny!”  She tried to hide the alarm in her voice.  “Bessie will take care of herself.  Come in the house, right now!”

It took all of her strength to pull the door shut, even though she waited for the lull between frighteningly powerful blasts.  The whole sky had turned a dull yellow, a hot and dirty yellow.  She huddled the children around the stump of blessed candle on a low stool.

She plucked the rosary from its nail on the wall and began to pray.

“I believe in God, the Father almighty. . .”

Darker and darker the gloom of the violent dust storm descended upon the tiny circle of kneeling figures.  The house shook and groaned.  The candle flickered and threatened to go out.

“My eyes hurt, Mama.”

“Keep them closed.  Don’t look up.  Pray for Daddy.”

“Hail Mary, full of grace. . .”

“Mama, I think the toilet just blew over!  I heard it!”

“Will the house blow down too, Mama?”

Their praying became frantic.  “Mama, why doesn’t God make the wind go away?”

“Where is Daddy?”

“Will the wind kill him?”

“No, Daddy will be all right.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”  Inside, her fear struggled for release as darkness and the howling wind took over her world.

Around six o’clock the wind died as suddenly as it had sprung up.  The dust settled.  The sun glared down on the new arrangements of dust dunes.

The boys couldn’t wait to get out of the oppressive heat of the house to watch for Matt or the tractor.  Meanwhile, they surveyed the damage to the outhouse, which they discovered had rolled about fifteen yards from its original setting, but had remained otherwise intact.  A brief attempt to roll it back convinced them that they must wait for a stronger hand.

A visit to the barn proved that all the animals had survived without apparent hurt.  The mounds of new dust invited them to rival the wind in producing wonderful designs, and they forgot their concern for Matt.

Inside the house, Laura initiated the endless task of clearing the fine dust out of the shelves and dishes.  The windowsills received an unusual amount of attention as she sought the approaches to the house for signs of Matt.

She fought back the emotional release when Danny burst in with an excited, “Daddy’s coming!  Daddy’s coming!”

Everyone clamored for first attention to report discoveries of what changes the storm had brought.  It took a sharp reprimand from Laura before Matt could tell his tale.

“You know, that wind was so strong it moved the John Deere!  We had to leave it and lie down in a furrow.”  He explained to the children how they had pulled their shirts up over their ears and almost choked to death before the storm had worn itself out.

“Were you afraid, Daddy?”

“You bet I was.”

“Just pretend it’s pepper,” Matt told the children as their teeth ground on the fine dirt that had found its way into their supper.

“But I don’t like pepper,” wailed Katie.

Matt swept her off her chair unto his lap, rumpled her thick dark hair.  “Then you’ll just have to pretend it’s cinnamon.”

He wept silent tears of frustration as he held Laura tight in bed that night.  He could see no break in the succession of misfortunes that had overtaken them.  Yet, in her arms he dared to hope again as sleep smoothed the creases from his brow.  Tomorrow would be better.

A few days after the big storm when things had settled down to normal, Matt borrowed a team of horses and a wagon from Mike Bitter to look for work in Minkle, any kind of work, anything to yield enough to buy much-needed groceries.  Five year old Johnny and little Katie had gone along.  The search proved futile.

He waited till near the end of the day to approach Murray’s store just before old Tim Murray could lock up.  Begging had never suited Matt’s temperament, but he simply had to talk the thin, white-faced grocer into more credit.

“But you already owe us eleven dollars and forty seven cents, Mr. Hermann.  When do you think you can pay that back?  What kind of crop have you got?”

No need to ask that, thought Matt.  He knows very well that no one has anything worthwhile.  Aloud he said, “It’s not very good, I know.  But I’ll make it up to you, you can take my word.”

In the end Tim Murray gave him the necessities, meticulously entering each item and totaling it up three times to make sure he hadn’t lost a precious penny anywhere.  If Matt could have hated, he would have hated this man, making him stand there humiliated in front of his children, whose solemn looks of concern forced him to swallow his pride, wink slyly and give them a wry smile.  Then he snatched up the box of groceries abruptly, mumbled a not-altogether sincere thank you, and hustled out to the wagon.

“Daddy, why didn’t anybody hire you today?”

“I don’t really know.  Maybe nobody needed any work done today.”

He breathed a deep sigh of relief when the children curled themselves up on a pile of blankets and promptly fell asleep.  It saved him trying to explain what couldn’t be explained. Nothing in the world seemed to be going in his favor.  But he felt that wasn’t true.  His mind wandered free.  He loved the pattern of the poplar groves curling around the rolling hills.  This land, given just a bit of rain, would flourish again.  The rains would come back.  He began to sing softly.  The horses pricked up their ears a little and leaned just a bit more willingly into their collars.

Two days later it came.

Without warning.

He had just pumped water for the chickens and pigs and now had the better pail on the pump for drinking water.  Suddenly all the muscles of his chest contracted.  He couldn’t breathe.  It caught him like a blow from a log.  He sagged over the pump handle, his left hand hanging limply at his side.  Only one thought possessed him.  Laura.  He must reach Laura.  He forced himself upright and propelled himself toward the house.

Then his chest exploded.

Immediately the pain disappeared.  He was floating.  From some indeterminate distance above he saw the children run screaming from different parts of the yard.  Almost indifferently now he caught sight of Laura wringing her hands on a white apron, rushing headlong down the slope toward the pump.

Through a white fog he heard them.

“Daddy.”

“Daddy!”

“Matt!”

“Daddeee!”

He loved them all. How he loved them.  But now he experienced peace, peace such as he had never believed possible.  He could watch time stand still, could analyze and savor each tiny moment, each sound, each nuance of color and line, all for as long as he pleased.  He could freeze an expression on each face and study it.

They kept calling, each voice a musical world of its own, blending into the sounds of gentle songbirds on the fence.  They clawed at his clothing.  Laura was kneeling at his side, her hands on his face, but he felt none of that.

He shifted his gaze upward into incredible brightness and calm.  How could it all be so beautiful?  How could he compare this with the dingy earth, where all his sweat had yielded him nothing, where the creek had dried up before the full summer warmth had even begun, where one skinny horse and a skinnier cow placidly ignored the little scene below, where barefoot little creatures swarmed all over his body.

“Daddy, Daddy, DADDY!” They screamed hysterically.

“No.  It is better on this side.  Don’t you see?  Look up and you’ll see me.  I’m right up here.  It’s beautiful up here.”

They fought over him, pulled at his arms, pounded on his limp body.

He looked up at the cool place above for direction, for some sign, but he knew there would be none.

He began a systematic concentration on his little brood below.  Danny, so generous, so earnest, so open to the world.  Freddy, the grasper, so much in need of a strong hand to pull him out of mischief.  Johnny, the tousle-headed dreamer, so in need of a push to inspire him.  And the girls, so beautiful despite the rough little hands, the scuffed knees, the dirty toenails.

And all of then clinging to Laura. Little Laura.  His memory took him back over the gentleness of their first embrace;  how eagerly she had responded to his own tender, almost cautious advances.  That first real kiss.  He saw her now abandoned.  Where would she go for help?  She’s so young yet.  He caught a vision of her with another man, one not so gentle, one who would take her instead of give to her.

No!

That could not happen.  He dared not let that happen.  He fought off a last desperate desire to just let it all go, to be free, to look again at the inviting prospect above him.  “I’ll come back!”  he was shouting, screaming, as the hammering in his chest began again.  Just when he thought he must burst apart, he flung himself with a mighty heave through the blackness.  He was breathing again.

“What happened, Daddy?”

“Matt, what is it?”

“I guess I fainted — just passed out.”

The looks on their faces plainly told him they did not believe that simple explanation.  They had witnessed his face distorted with terrible agony.  Complete and utter exhaustion held him in so powerful a grip that he could not rise to his feet.  Half crawling, half carried, he made his way to the house.  He raised no objection when Laura suggested he lie down till suppertime.

“Come away now, kids.  Go outside and play.  Let Daddy rest a while.”

Sounds of whispering and muffled sounds of supper preparation intruded on his consciousness only vaguely as he drifted into shallow valleys of sleep.  “I must have dozed off,” he explained lamely as he took his seat at table where the family was already half finished.  They made no effort to hide their apprehension as they watched him move about so slowly.  Like an old man, like someone not at all sure of his place.

Oppressive silence replaced the normal chatter and bickering around the table.  For once, Laura would have welcomed a spat.  But even the youngest did not fail to catch the significance of Matt’s ashen features.  Their strong father had been reduced in an hour to a weakling who could hardly move his chair up to the table.  It took more energy than he had to lift his arm high enough to feed himself, and in the end left all but a small mouthful of potatoes on his plate.

He knew they didn’t  believe him when he grumbled that he was all right now, that he would be better in the morning.  He dragged himself back to bed where he fell instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.

“Would you like some coffee, Matt?”

“Wh . . What time is it?”

“It’s about noon.”

“Is it really!”

“How do you feel, Matt?”

“All right now.  Where are the kids?”

“They’re all outside playing.  You really slept good.  I don’t think you moved a muscle all night.”

“Did you sleep, Laura?”  He felt a twinge of guilt as he realized he was sprawled over the center of the bed.

“You’ll have to see a doctor, Matt.  They say there’s a good one in Lake Sand.  He comes out every Wednesday.”

“You know we can’t afford that.  Do you know what doctors charge, Laura?  I’ll be all right.”

But after two weeks he could do no more than eat and sleep.  Laura and the boys managed the chores, but the farm work simply had to wait.  He said nothing about the strange experience of leaving his body.  He did not understand it, could not have found words to talk about it, and would only have frightened and hurt them.

In time rest and food restored some of his strength.  Gradually he resumed his normal round of work, being careful to find excuses to rest every time the pain threatened his chest.

Despite a terrifying tiredness that eroded his confidence, he made it through the long winter.  In spite of his efforts to appear perfectly normal, he did not deceive Laura.  Finally he told her more firmly than he had ever spoken to her that he wanted to hear no more of sickness or doctors or hospitals.  After that, each had to carry the devil of fear alone.

Spring came early.  April blessed the earth with quiet rains and warm sun.  Even the natural pessimism born of the drought could not hold back the smiles and bright eyes as farmers gathered briefly after Sunday Mass.

This spirit captured Matt body and soul.  He forgot his caution and fear.  Then on a dusty day in July, just as he forked the last great load of hay onto the huge stack by the barn, he was stricken again.  Laura found him doubled over, gasping for life.  And this time he raised no argument when Laura pointed out that the doctor would be in Lake Sand on the morrow.  He wanted to live.

It seemed as if the doctor would never finish listening to his heart.  Finally, as if he had waited as long as possible to give his verdict to this strong young farmer, he announced, “You have a serious heart problem.  The valves which control the amount of blood moving from one part of the heart to the other are not functioning properly.  Let me show you in a drawing.”

Matt stared at the simple explanation.  So much like the valves of a motor, he thought.  “What can be done?”

“Nothing as far as I know.  They’re studying some new techniques in the States, working on animals.  That looks promising, but nobody has tried it on humans.  You’ll simply have to avoid  any physical exertion.  Your heart can’t take it.”

“But I’m a farmer.  That’s all I know what to do.  How else can I make a living?  I have no education.  And I’ve got a big family to feed.”

“I don’t know how you’ll manage, but I can tell you that your heart won’t stand up under any kind of pressure.  You have to get off the farm, Matt.  You have no choice about that.  Your wife will find you dead some day.  And you’ll be wise to avoid intercourse too.  That’s hard on the heart.”

“Just when the crops are good.  It’s not fair!” Laura complained bitterly at first.  Yet, both of them had been taught to accept life as it came, been taught to accept fate as the will of God which could not be questioned.  They set everything in motion for the move to Lake Sand to a little cottage a maiden aunt made available to them.  She had suffered a bad fall and would be more comfortable with her sister anyway.  Matt tried to insist that she should not have to give up her house, but he had no alternative.

The first night in the new house brought home the cruelty of fate.  For the first time in many years Matt and Laura had their own bedroom.  He awoke just as the first sparrows began to chirp the arrival of a new day.  Laura was curled up warm in his embrace.

“Matt, you know what the doctor said.  You don’t want to die in my arms, do you?”

“I couldn’t think of a better place or a better way to go.”

“What about the kids, Matt?  And we can’t take a chance on having any more.  Matt, don’t!  Please!”

So that was that too, he thought bitterly.  He released her and turned over.  Silence.

“You’re not mad at me, are you, Matt?”

“No.”

Matt drifted from one job to another.  Although he retained his naturally gentle outlook, life was simply not life without work.  Lake Sand offered few chances of employment at work requiring little physical exertion, and when he discovered a natural affinity for bookkeeping, he could find no one to offer to pay him for that talent.

The livery stable, the lumberyard, the curling rink, all in the end proved too much.  He found it impossible to walk home sometimes without sitting down to rest.  At such times, the children would find him and rush to him.  Laura, not wanting to create a scene, would wait anxiously at home for him to rise stiffly and plod home with his cluster of silent little ones.

Finally, Uncle Jake, who owned the Lake Sand Hotel on Main Street, offered him a job in the beer parlor.  It proved interesting only for a very short time.  Matt had little stomach for slinging beer to men who had already had too much, and too little cash to pay for it.  He abhorred cleaning up the foul-smelling messes deposited on floors and tables by soused neighbors.  He wound up drinking too much himself occasionally and would crawl sheepishly into bed, glad that Laura said nothing, but feeling her reproaches even more deeply for her not speaking out.

His boys became familiar with the beer parlor too.  Each Saturday morning they accompanied Matt to give the greasy wooden floor a thorough scrubbing with huge mops and brushes.  The sour-sweet smell of stale beer disappeared by the time the heavy old tables and chairs were put back into place.  They saved the worst job to the end, the cleaning of the little room off the lounge, with its long tin trough and unbelievably foul stench, which nothing could take away.

For Matt, his beer parlor job represented the ultimate defeat.  Something deep inside stopped fighting.  Cruel nature had robbed him of his farm.  A quirk of fortune had crippled his heart.  He now bowed to the inevitable fate of waiting for life to play its final trick on him.

Although he tried to hide his bitter hopelessness from his family, he knew they knew it.  He saw it in their eyes too.  He tried to laugh, but it sounded forced, hollow, artificial.  He began to lose weight.  There was no hiding the haunted hollowness in his eyes.  He walked ever slower, husbanding what strength he had for the losing battle ahead.  There was really nothing to do.  That’s the way life is, he told himself.  You can’t fight it.  God made it that way for reasons of his own, and who are we to question him?

Laura shared his de-energizing despair in silence.  They dared not speak of it openly, but each recognized the meaning of the signs.  She could imagine no other way to deal with their tragedy but to wait and pray for the strength to accept what God had in store for them.

In the mid-afternoon of a gloriously sunny day after a heavy rain of the day before,  Herb Hermann had taken Matt out to look at the crops.  He had pulled off the road into the ditch before realizing that the ditch was full of water.  He was immediately stuck.  Matt was out of the car and grabbing the rear bumper before Herb could stop him.

On that same afternoon during the final recess, the church bell suddenly began to toll.  The village had lost one of their number.  The ragged ball games came to a momentary halt as the school children searched each other’s faces.  Someone they knew was gone, irretrievably gone.

All eyes turned on Sister Antonia hurrying toward them.  She was all out of breath.  “I would like to see . . . the Matt Hermann boys in the parlor.”  She bustled on ahead of them back to the school, her black habit flapping despite the quiet day.  She had to collect her thoughts for the message she would have to deliver.

“You know your father has not been well for a long time . . .” she began.  The rest of her words blurred into a meaningless mumble.  Numb and shaken, they had to be told twice, “You may go into the chapel to pray.”

There they found their little sisters on their knees, already weeping softly.  Young as they all were, they understood enough of life to know that their Daddy had finally found peace.

For them it was not so simple.  What were they supposed to do now?  Then Danny, under the weight of responsibility he hardly dared think of, gathered them together.

“Come on, Let’s go home.”

 

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

 

 

 

SO SIMPLE THE CHOICE

 

Pete Germaine knew something was wrong as soon as he walked into Father Bill Delcoe’s office in St. Simon’s.  Immediately, Father Bill’s stare, reptilian in its shocking coldness, jarred him into the realization that he should have paid attention to that tiny twitch of misgiving he felt when he found, posted on his office door, the new pastor’s curt, “You have a meeting with me today at 3:30.”

Pete Germaine was the kind of man who did what was right day after day.  No fanfare.  Just a dogged pursuit of duty.  He had left the seminary just before ordination, choosing, after a three-year hitch in the army, to return to the family farm.

For the last eight years he had been employed as the Religious Formation Coordinator at St. Simon’s.  He could honestly say that he had lived a life of obedience to God, to his country, and to the parish, something he attributed as much to the army as to his religion.   He was proud of the fact that he always went the extra mile.

Now he was hearing Father Bill say, “I don’t know who you are. I am concerned about some of your work in the parish and in the community.”

No other introduction.   Then that chilling stare.  Was he supposed to say something?  He waited.

He knew he was doing good work and was respected for his ministry.

“You will have to discontinue your hospital ministry,” Father Bill continued.

“My hospital ministry?”

“I’ve done some checking and I have talked to some people.  I have also been in contact with the canon lawyers in the chancery office.  We are concerned that you are posing as a priest and doing ministry only priests can do.”

Unbidden thoughts crossed Pete’s mind.  Then why are there no priests around to do it?  Why don’t those who are here do the work?  Why do they have unlisted phone numbers?  But Pete said nothing.  He thought of the many people whom he had served in their dying moments, of those to whom he had brought the Lord in Communion, praying with them, and assuring them of the love of the all-forgiving God.  He had slipped into this work so gradually that it seemed the natural thing to do.

“You will also stop doing funeral services of any kind.”  The priest was now no longer looking at him.   “You will no longer do any Communion services in church or any preaching.  You will confine yourself to administrative tasks only, and coordinate the catechetical program of the children.  That is all we have in your original job description.”

“You mean I can’t. . .”

“Yes.  I say you must stop all other ministry as of now.”

Pete was painfully aware that his fatigued clothing and pudgy form must have been a poor vehicle for God when compared to the elegantly pressed black suit and the pure white Roman collar of the ordained priest.

For a moment he thought, how odd it was that he ever imagined that his knobby workman hands could be vehicles of sacramental grace when compared to the meticulously manicured and anointed hands of Father Bill, hands now indulgently stroking a gold pen, now making powerful pyramids. Years of pride in his ministry evaporated from Pete in less than ten minutes.  He felt contaminated somehow, as if he had betrayed his values in his work.  In those few minutes this arrogant man upset his sense of fulfillment and turned it into vainglorious pride.

But Pete’s mind refused to stop there.  Does God’s grace flow only as if by magic through the stark formulas of the Roman Ritual and the speck of oil on the sacred thumb of the ordained priest?   Did he not experience God at work in his loving touch when he rubbed great gobs of the holy oils into the forehead and hands and feet of the sick while praying for healing of body, mind, and spirit?  Did not God’s word flow from his lips and from his heart when he conducted funeral services for people who had turned away from the church?

“You mean to destroy me, don’t you?”  Pete blurted it out before thinking, before considering what effect this might have.  He should have remained silent.

“Are you questioning my authority?” Father Bill demanded angrily.  “May I remind you that the Scripture clearly says that Jesus gave the power of the sacraments only to priests.  You are acting in heresy when you use the holy oils or the ritual as if you had the power of the priesthood.  He who hears you hears me, Jesus said.  The authority of the magisterium of the Catholic Church has always taught this.”

The priest finished,  “You must listen to me to find the will of God for your ministry.  I expect you to obey me without question.  If you do not, you have two weeks notice as of today.  A letter will be in your mail to that effect later today.”

Pete left the office in confusion, drained of courage or resolve.  At 75 years of age, with a semi-invalid wife, and no savings, he felt he could not begin again.  But could he work under the authority of a petty tyrant like this and retain any sense of honesty?  He rushed to the church and knelt before the altar in deep anguish.  The lingering scent of incense heightened his acute awareness of the divine presence.  “Tell me, Lord Jesus, what am I to do now?”

The answer came swiftly, without a trace of ambiguity.  This was not about Peter Germaine doing priestly work.  This was all about power and control.  He had roused the sleeping giant of the clerical establishment.  He had never imagined that some day, today, he would be choosing between Jesus Christ and his church authority.  Yet, here it was, so stark, so clear, so simple.

The rush of gladness and freedom caught Pete by surprise.  Hope burst forth in a mighty surge as the words of Jesus struck home.

“Do not worry yourself at all about having enough food and clothing.  Those without faith are always running after these things.  You have no need to be concerned about them.  Your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will see that you have enough.  So don’t be anxious about tomorrow.  God will take care of your tomorrow too.  Live one day at a time.”

Pete could not wait to go home to tell Clara that they were now free to pursue their dream of returning to a simpler life on the farm.

 

 

 

 

THE BLIND MAN

“They don’t understand.  They just don’t understand at all.”  I sob into my pillow, and am ashamed.  A man ought not cry, not a grown man.  But no one understands my need.

I make my way clumsily outside.  I no longer care enough to be careful when I go from one place to another and I crash into things.  Who cares anyway?

I get into the old willow arbor.  Made it myself long years ago.  When I first got home from Lexingville.  Thought it would be a great place to meditate.  I haven’t repaired it or cared for it for a long time.  No one else seems to have noticed.  Or they haven’t said anything to me if they did.

That’s probably Francis calling out.  I’ll not respond to him either anymore.  Give him a good show of a crazy blind man who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.  I mutter and smack my lips vigorously and stumble across the bench as if reaching for something that isn’t there.

He’s calling again, but I’m not going to hear him.  Even he is not getting another chance to hurt me.  No one is.  I’ll just stay in the world they’ve forced me to enter.  Full of madness and despair, where nothing makes sense.

It took me a long time.  But I did finally reconcile myself to the fact that I would never again see with my eyes.  What I find so damnably frustrating is the equally cogent fact that I can’t see with my hands.  Not because my hands can’t see.  I can see more with my hands than most others see with their eyes because I pay much closer attention to the information I receive from my hands.  What hurts so much is that they haven’t allowed me to use them to see the things I’ve wanted most to see.

No one in this horrible village understands.  They never have.  I once thought I could explain things, but that time is long gone.  Now I can’t talk to anyone about it.  Not even the parish priest.  He’s the only really educated person around here, but even he wouldn’t understand.  He would maybe even be the worst, with his kindness, his patronizing kindness.  How could you tell a priest of your need to touch the face of a woman, or a boy?

Ma is stirring again.  The screen door on the back porch has its own way of saying who is using it. I will have to go in again and find something to do, to keep busy.  She mainly ignores me now.  She never shows whether she’s feeling sorry for me, or for herself.  She was a pretty cheerful woman, long time ago.  Vaguely, I wonder again what she looks like.  Somehow I can’t shake that desire.

I get up from my seat in the arbor as if to go into the house.  Then I make as if I am lost again, and struggle to get back to sit down.  I tumble over something, and get up in confusion.  I listen halfheartedly to the buzz of lazy summer flies and the scurrying of the chickens scratching for scraps in the chicken yard.  I used to enjoy that so much it hurts now.  I go over my life once more, for the millionth time.

I remember the day, so long ago, when my brothers and I were splitting this huge pile of wood.  We were laughing and shouting our fool heads off about something.  All of a sudden an axe-head flew off its handle and caught me directly on the side of my head.  I think I saw it coming but I couldn’t duck in time.

I can remember vaguely my drifting in and out of consciousness.  I recall the grayness, the gradual loss of light, and then finally coming home unable to see even though I opened my eyes as wide as I could.

“He will probably never see again.”  The words of doom.  It took a lot of persuading to convince my parents to abandon their immigrant distrust of government agencies and to allow me to attend a school for the blind.

I am ashamed to say those were the very best years of my life.    Unlike the family and my village friends, the people in Lexingville School for the Blind made me feel whole, convinced me that despite my handicap, I was normal and useful and talented.  I learned to read Braille. I loved detective stories best.  Then they taught me all about the piano and the organ and the guitar.  They taught me that I could use my other senses for reliable information.  I learned to trust my ears and my nose and my skin.

Especially, I learned what my hands could do. I learned to see with them.  My fingertips became my most important avenues of contact with everything around me.  Gradually I learned to piece together a world that was comfortable and exciting.

I was nineteen by the time I was ready to return home.  I felt so completely ready.  I was young, strong, and confident of my ability to deal with life.  I was especially proud of my body.  Running and workouts in the gym had hardened my muscles till I liked how firm and hard they were.   Each morning while I was shaving I felt my whole face.  “You’re not bad looking, old man.  Forehead a bit large and eyes somewhat sunken, but a strong chin and strong facial lines.  I think girls would like what they see.”

Twice I had fallen in love at the school.  The first time, wow!  I look back now with amusement.  Miss Brinley was just about the most wonderful instructor I could ever imagine.  I recall poignantly how patient she was and yet how firmly and insistently she helped me get over my adolescent infatuation without destroying my confidence in my ability to relate with others.

And then there was Mary Carter.  She was blind too, and lived in another part of the school.  We used to meet at parties when all of us students gathered every Saturday evening.  She played the accordion and showed me something of its intricacies.  I never got anywhere with that instrument because that wasn’t what interested me when we were with each other.    We often sang together at public occasions.  I’d have to say that we were a real hit, judging by the many times we were asked to sing, and how everybody clapped when we were finished.

Then when she ran her tiny fingers over my face for the first time.  God, what a magnificent thrill took hold of my whole being!

“Oh, Werner, you’re so handsome!”

Shyly, she felt for my hands and pulled them up to her face.  How soft, how incredibly soft her skin.  Smoother than any velvet.  I wanted the sensation to last forever.  I held on to her hands for a long time before carefully and slowly exploring her arms.  But I couldn’t get beyond her elbows.  Was anyone watching?  I couldn’t tell.   I so much wanted to feel the rest of her, her whole body, and for her to feel mine. If only we had the privacy so systematically and consistently denied us.

We did manage somehow to steal a moment here and there.  When we danced, I would hold her close, intoxicated by her smell.  I felt the swell of her breasts and would lose concentration and bump into others who were more careful to follow the pattern set out by the dance instructor.

“Mary, where can we go?  Where can we be alone together?”

“We’ll find a way.  Let me think about it.”

But then all of a sudden she was gone.  No one would give me a straight answer.  I knew they knew where she was and were holding back.  Then Miss Brinley finally relented.  “Mary has gone to another school, Werner.  Her parents came for her and have sent her on to continue her music studies in Toronto.”

“But she didn’t even say good-bye.  She wasn’t finished here.  She never said she was leaving.”  I was frantic.  “What’s her address?   I want to write to her.”

“Better you don’t, Werner.  Better for both of you before you get hurt.  It never works out, Werner, and you’ll soon be finished here and will go home.  You’ll always have her as a beautiful memory.  And that is best for you.  For both of you.”

How convenient they all made it sound.  Everybody knew what was best for us.  They made all the decisions that really counted.  That was bad enough, but couldn’t they at least have consulted us?  Or talked it over with us as if we had some brains?

Others could fall in love, marry and have kids.  Why should they deny that fullness of life to us just because we happened to be blind?  I was so sure that Mary was in love with me because I was in love with her. It was simply inconceivable that she might have wanted to leave Lexingville without saying anything, without leaving me a message of some kind.

Years later, after it didn’t matter anymore, Miss Brinley, who had become Mrs. Wilmett, wrote to tell me without apologizing that Mary did leave a message.  She had asked that it be delivered before she had to leave.  But the principal intercepted it, read it, and decided to destroy it, counting on the likelihood that we would never make contact again.  After all, we were just kids and both blind.

I almost forgot the pain of losing Mary in the bustle of preparing to go home.  I could just imagine myself getting off the train, tall and handsome in the new suit I purchased with money I had stashed away from my earnings playing at dances. The whole family would be there, Ma and Pa and my three brothers.  What a thrill it would be for me to show off what I learned.  I wouldn’t be a burden to them at all.

The conductor helped me down the steep metal steps onto the platform.  At the bottom of the steps I stopped, planted my feet firmly and waited expectantly, eager to hold each one in turn, and tell them how exciting it was to be home, how much I missed each one of them, and to hear them say how equally they had missed me.  I wanted to share my ideas, how I could get started with life again.  I had it all rehearsed.  I practiced it all the way home.

A strange hand grabbed me roughly and pulled me forward, off balance.  My foot caught on the uneven boards of the platform, and I lurched forward, barely avoiding a complete fall.  Talk about a grand entrance!  I needn’t have worried about embarrassing myself.  No one else came to my homecoming except this stranger.

“C’mon, Werner.  Let’s go home.”  I didn’t recognize the deep voice.  “Oh, I’m Eddie, your little brother.”

Crazy, that I now look back at this little embarrassment as the easiest part of coming back home.  I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t prepared for what happened. I had come home with such confidence.  I could tune and repair pianos and organs.  I could play four different musical instruments, three at the same time.  I just knew that I would be a sensation, or at least adequate, at community dances.  With even just a bit of help from the community, I really believed that I could make a living.

But that was not to be.  They shelved me without so much as a thought, put me aside, treated me as if I were a child or an idiot.  No amount of show and tell, no amount of confrontation with anyone, made any impact on the stubborn little village’s conviction that a blind man was not normal, could not be productive, had to be supported, humored. I was an oddity, a freak, the village dolt to be protected and treated kindly, but not to be taken at all seriously.

Before realizing it, I fell into a routine as changeless as the seasons and days. I remember trying to keep some sense of well-being, but it was impossible.  I simply couldn’t escape the deterioration of an endless succession of mind-rotting distractions to keep me busy.  I had a few chores around the house, but they were so elemental that, as the old saying goes, “A blind man could do it.”   There was no stimulation.   Every chance of real life resulted in failure, or in tragedy, the more painful because it was all so unnecessary.  And there was no one with whom to share my feelings when the bottom fell out of something.

Katie was one of those terrible experiences.  She shouldn’t be called an experience because she was a lot more than that.  It wasn’t all that long after coming home that I began to notice she was special.  She was a regular visitor to her aging aunt next door to our house. It took so dreadfully long to get beyond the worn-out pleasantries of greeting and response.

Katie loved to sing.  She sang at Mass.  She sang at parties and dances.  Sometimes she sang while I played organ or guitar at a party or dance.  And sometimes we sang together, with me getting in with my thin tenor beside her powerful soprano.  It brought back memories of Mary, only richer for happening at home.  I started to feel alive, to think things might be looking up, that there might be some hope in this ignorant little village after all.

The times were always too short.  And I never did discover how to escape supervision.  With everybody else seeing, I never knew when we were really alone. And then one day she joined me in my retreat, my favorite seat in the willow arbor, right here where I am now sitting.  Only the place was in much better shape then.

I took great pains to explain how it was with a blind person, how we have to rely on our other senses to learn about the things around us.  I talked about what we had learned at the school for the blind.  I told her about Mary, just a little, and stressed that I saw only with my hands, and could I please see her hands, just a little while?

Something of that magical sense of thrill I felt must have passed on to her, for she stiffened, and quickly withdrew her hands.  She was gone before I could say anything more.

“What were you doing out there?  Holding hands with her?  What do you think?”

“I think I love her.”

“Love her!  Hah!  You?  Who would want a useless blind man?  Just forget it.  And don’t you dare do it again.”

“We weren’t even holding hands, Ma.  I was just seeing her hands.  You know that I need to use my hands to see.”

“Don’t you ever touch her again.  Not ever.  Or I will tell your Pa.”

Well, she did tell him.  His wicked tongue-lashing and the furious accusations he threw at me emptied my heart of any affection I once had for this fiery little monster who was my father.

I never had any idea at all what the man looked like.  Not long after coming home from blind school I tried to see Ma.  I didn’t get very far.  I tried to be so careful when I started exploring her features.  Then it ended abruptly.  She got uncomfortable, shuddered involuntarily and said that’s enough before I could form any image of her.  Pa would hear of no touch at all, and I never could find the right words to explain that I really just wanted to see him.

Katie told me what happened next door.  She caught hell the same way I did.

“I saw you out there with him.”

“With who?”

“With that Werner.  You were holding hands.”

“No, we weren’t.  He was just looking at my hands.  He needs to use his hands to see.”

“Don’t you believe that.  He’s a man, and you know what they want.”

“Oh, Auntie.  He’s nothing like that.”

“He’s not normal.”

“He’s as normal as anyone else.  He’s just blind.  He’s the kindest man I know.  He’s gentle and beautiful, and thoughtful.  His hands are so kind and so strong.”

“Don’t you dare to come over here anymore to see him.  Do you hear?    I’ll tell your Ma and Pa and you’ll get a whipping sure.”

Somehow, after that, the magic, if ever there was any, was gone in our relationship.   We were both too shy, too fearful of our parents to talk about it.

And now the last nail is being pounded into the coffin of another relationship that lasted longer and was almost as sweet.  He’ll forget me and go on with his life and that’ll be it.  No need to hassle him or make him feel sorry or anything.  My life and my feelings simply don’t count.

How terribly unfair life is.  Francis moved into the house next door about five or six years ago.  He’s at college now.  He hardly ever gets home anymore.  And when he does I don’t get to see him much.

There was something special between us from the beginning.  Francis had that sort of mind that sopped up anything he could learn.  I guess you could call our friendship out of the ordinary.  At least it was so for me.

We spent so much time together.  I couldn’t count the hours we sat together here in my willow arbor, playing thousands of games of checkers.   I used to read him the detective stories from the big heavy books I got from the Lexington School for the Blind every couple of weeks.  He even learned some Braille.  And he read from his books too.  We talked endlessly about the great and the little things of life.  We used to sing those old favorite cowboy songs till we couldn’t sing any more.

Often we ran the alleys hand in hand, as fast as we could go, till one or the other would say we had enough.

I did a lot of simple carving in those days.  Little stuff just for the fun of it.  I had this jackknife that I kept sharp on an old whetstone.  I taught Francis to pay attention to the smell of different woods, and to listen while cutting or sanding, and especially to feel whether he had gotten the wood smooth enough.  We made dozens of propellers that danced and rattled in the wind.

We often walked to church together along the sidewalks.  We went to the movies whenever the theater owner gave me free tickets to a show.  And I dreamt about the ideal bond that could exist between man and boy.  I dreamt of what it would be like to have a son of my own, and that it would be just like this, only more and longer and all the time.

“Francis, put it back!  You can’t fool me!”   You know, sometimes he would try to sneak one of my checkers off the board when he was afraid he was losing.  And there were times he tried to creep up on me to surprise me, and he was always so full of wonder when I said something just before he was about to pounce on me.

We used to play cards a lot too, with decks marked in Braille at the upper left corners.  I knew he would be watching where I put the suits and where I kept trumps, so every hand I changed their location and mixed them up so he couldn’t tell how many of anything I held.  And it was so much fun, and we would laugh over it, and I would slam my cards down triumphantly.  But that’s all water over the dam now.

Before each game we played one of us would announce, “Here’s where all friendship ceases.”  And then we would play our best to win, giving and asking for no quarter, no second chances.  A game is a game, but it is also a lot like life, and Francis understood that.

I sometimes wondered, for all the good times we had, whether Francis understood much more than anyone else.  And I guess now I know.  Now that he is in college, he doesn’t come over much anymore.  He’s got other things on his mind. I know that.  He has no use for me now.  His family and girls are more important.  Why would he want to come see an old blind man?

He is calling out again, but I have to set him free to get on with his own life.  God, but this is a lonely business.  I have never felt so alone before now, even in all the lousy waste of my life.

I might just as well be dead.  There is no one who cares about me, not really, and no use of forcing the issue.  What could have been is no longer possible.  My only choice is to fade out, let them all think what they want, and pass on as the freak show they all expected.

All of them.

Life deals bad hands to some people, and try as they might, there’s nothing to be done about it.  A stupid accident.  A split second of difference. An inch this way or that, and life is forever changed.

And that’s all there is to it.  When you can’t see, you can’t see.   And even if you could, or thought you could, if no one lets you see, you can’t see either.   I can no longer fight it, and there’s the hell of it all.

 

 

Francis added this postscript to Werner’s story:  The last time I saw Werner, he was groping around in his arbor.  It was pretty rundown.  I called to him, but either he didn’t hear, and I find that hard to imagine, or else he didn’t want to hear.  Or maybe he had lost his way.  He was muttering, and smacking his lips so loud I could hear it in the next yard. 

            I heard later that his folks moved to BC, and that they had to put Werner into an institution because they couldn’t take care of him anymore.  He died there alone a few years later.

 

THE NOVICE 

Abbot Ignatius would never admit to anyone that he entertained any doubts, even for a moment, that the words of Jesus, “He who listens to you listens to me” applied to himself in his dealings with those in his charge.  When Father Martin told him to expect novice Frater Bede to come in to say that he wished to terminate his stay at the monastery, he was prepared.

As for Freddie, for the first time in ten months he felt happy, deeply happy.  In a few minutes he would be free, as free as the spring air blowing over the brown prairie after the long winter.  He was going home. He would no longer be Frater Bede. He would be able to play hockey again, not that he was that good a player, but so much more fun than skating back and forth on the rink just for exercise. Oh yes, and he would dance again. He loved dancing and singing and partying. Those things would no longer be prohibited.

He would see his Mom and his sisters, whom he hadn’t seen in six months. That sole visit during his novitiate was very short.  On the way out, he held his widowed mother back and confessed that he did not want to be a monk.  She stopped, stood there silently for a while.  She took his hand to lead him back to the parlor.

“But, Mom, time’s up.  I can’t …”

“This is too important.  You need to tell me what is going on.”

For long moments she looked lovingly into his eyes, saying nothing.  Freddie opened his heart to her.  He told her how unhappy he was.  “You need to decide what is best for you.  Only you know what that is. You are a good boy, Freddie. You need to trust yourself and then do whatever you think is right.  That is all I expect of you.”  She opened her arms to hug him and held him close.  He had wanted clearer direction.  He wanted her to tell him to come home.  He simply could not bear the burden of this momentous life decision alone.

All during his months in the monastery, Marilyn appeared constantly in his thoughts.  He reviewed every memory, every conversation, every feeling he had experienced with her.

In grade nine he received a scholarship to attend the monastery’s boarding school with the expectation that he would join the monastery.  Despite the long absences between rare weekends, he and Marilyn managed to keep in touch.  Each visit created fresh, confusing, and unexpressed emotions. There were other girls too, but she was special.

On a clear, star-brightened autumn evening when they were seventeen, they joined a small group of other young people after a parish youth meeting.  They were standing a little apart.  Their hands met.  Sensations he had not dared to harbour stirred within him.  He pulled her closer to him, just to keep her warm, he told himself.

She made no move to pull away. “Let’s find a star that we can have as our own some day, where no one else can come to.  Just for us.”  They settled on the third star from the end of the Big Dipper.  He felt an overwhelming thrill of belonging to her in this special way.  He liked that feeling, liked it very much.

Later that evening she kissed him.  He could still feel every detail of it, so sweetly did she lay her lips on his.  Cool and moist.  For one brief eternity she lingered there, holding his face with both hands, pressing herself against him, and then she was gone.  Every part of his being responded.  It felt good, so very good.  He had not allowed himself to explore what it might be like to be in love with Marilyn.  Now he would be free to examine that possibility.  He would go home and find out if they were meant for each other.  He could hardly contain his excitement.

The morning he left for the monastery, Freddie and Marilyn had attended Mass.  They walked away from church together in silence.  Upon arriving in front of her home he turned to her.  “Today you will be rid of me once and for all.”  What in the world made him say a stupid thing like that?  What must she think?

He never found out.  She turned away quickly.  Were there tears in her eyes?  Was she angry?  Was she sad to see him go?  Why didn’t she say goodbye?  He wanted her to throw herself at him, to hug him, to kiss him over and over, to scream at him to stay and not go to the monastery. He  wanted her to cry because he was crying inside and could not say what was in his heart to say.  He wanted her to tell him she would wait for him, that if it didn’t work out she would be here for him.  Instead, she walked away, never turning to look at him. He stood there, like a stupid ox, watching her until she disappeared around the corner of her home.

He thought it would be so easy to knock on the abbot’s door, announce his plan to leave, and be out of there in minutes to call his cousin to come and pick him up to take him home.  He almost whistled his happiness as he packed his few belongings. How wonderful it would be to have fun again, to laugh, to tell crazy jokes, to hang out with his friends.

He felt satisfied that he had given the monastic life a sincere try.  The Rule of St. Benedict opened with poetic inspiration, of “running the way of God’s commandments with expanded hearts and unspeakable sweetness of love.”  Freddie wanted that. Yet he had not found it.  The daily talks by Abbot Ignatius were singularly joyless, with the constant theme that the abbot’s will is the will of God.

He had spent the last several months convincing his spiritual adviser, Father Martin, that although he might “have all the signs of a priestly vocation,” he could not bring himself to make the sacrifices necessary to follow that path.  Father Martin had often sighed, “There are two things you need, good will and generosity.  You have the good will…”  Okay, so he wasn’t generous enough to give his life to the service of God, to answer the call to the priesthood.

“Should I go and tell the abbot?”  Father Martin asked him after the last of these sessions.

“I guess that’s my job, isn’t it?”  he answered.  It did not occur to Freddie that the abbot would challenge him.

He took a deep breath, knocked softly on the abbot’s door, and entered when he heard the invitation. He blessed himself with holy water from the big copper stoup just inside the door.  Despite the early afternoon hour,  the room was cheerless, dispiriting.  It smelled of stagnation and decay.  A maze of paths meandered through the room, around an oversized oak desk piled high with papers, around tables burdened with stacks of magazines, and mountains of dusty books all over the floor, years of accumulated clutter.

“Sit down.”

Freddie sat down on the edge of the leather chair the abbot pointed to.  Abbot Ignatius stood, ready.

“I  want to leave, to go home, and take care of my mother.”   He had not rehearsed this line.  It was clearly false.  Why didn’t he tell the truth?  Why could he not have said, “I want to leave.  I can’t breathe here.  I can’t sing.  I can’t play.  I have never been so unhappy in my whole life.”

Abbot Ignatius wasted no time in niceties.  He loomed over Freddie like a voracious vulture, his bony old fingers with their ragged fingernails shaking in his face.  Around the room, grim-faced former abbots painted by mediocre artists stared vapidly at the scene below them.

“That is not your concern.  She can take care of herself.  You are called to the priesthood.  That is God’s will for you.”

Somewhere deep inside a voice intervened.  “Freddie, you do not have to listen to this.  He has no inside track on what God wants of you.  God speaks in many ways.  You owe this man nothing.  You do not have to explain or justify any decision you make about your life.  You are free to get up and walk out right now.  You do not need his permission.  There are no locks on the doors unless you put them there yourself.” Could he trust that voice?

“You must follow the will of God.  As your abbot, I alone am the instrument of God’s will for you.  Abraham was rewarded for his obedience.  Jesus himself was obedient, even unto death.  God’s plan for you is clear.  You must give up your own will, your self-love, your pride.  Only the most despicable person says to God I will not serve.”

Freddie stared at the array of crucifixes over every door, on every available space on the uneven dirty white plaster  walls.  The tortured Christ writhed in agony for the sins of the human race.  The crowning virtue for the follower of Christ was obedience without question, without hesitation, whatever the cost.

The voice inside whispered, “But you have made no vows of obedience to this man.  You do not have to do what he tells you.”  Freddie not found that voice confusing. Who was right, the voice of desire or the voice of religion?

“God has called you to the monastic life and the priesthood.  If you say no to God you  will surely lose your immortal soul.  You will find the way open to hell.”

Throughout his life, from his earliest memories, an abject dread of hellfire had dominated much of Freddie’s experience of religion, a paralyzing fear of God as a most strict judge, quick to punish those who disobeyed even in little things, whether in thought, word, action, or even desire.

Abbot Ignatius caught the look of fear in Freddie’s eyes.  “God is asking you to be perfect in your acceptance of his will.  You must rid yourself of your self-will, your self-indulgence, your emotional tendencies, your silly pride, your independent thinking, if you want to reach heavenly bliss.  The only road to that is absolute and unquestioning submission to the will of the abbot.  That is what God demands of you.”

Freddie felt himself sinking lower into the chair as the abbot loomed ever closer, towering over him.  The finger of God in that old man’s hand.  If he listened too long he would be overwhelmed.  Defeated.  He couldn’t tell the abbot the real reason for wanting to leave.  How could he tell the old man that he needed to be free, to play, to see Marilyn,  to party, to laugh and be silly.

The anticipation of freedom Freddie had felt just before knocking on the abbot’s door was threatening to melt away.  He imagined the chain of God, whipped into a frenzy by Abbot Ignatius, wrap itself around his neck, his hands, his feet, his heart.  Snared, skewered, crucified, castrated.  He sank ever deeper into the huge chair, becoming a small child in the presence of a domineering father.  And he hated it.  Hated it with all his heart.  He stifled a surge of intense rage.

“Forget your mother.  She doesn’t need you.  She’ll do all right on her own.  You wouldn’t help her anyway.   You are too selfish to give yourself to God, so how do you expect not to be selfish with your mother?  You’ll leave her too, just as you want to leave God behind.  Selfishness leads to all sin.  The death of your soul.  You can forget the promises of God to enter the narrow gate.”

The voice inside now seemed smaller, desperate.  “Freddie, listen.  You are not and never have been a selfish person.  God speaks inside your heart as well.  Listen to that voice.  It speaks the truth.”

It was quickly intercepted with another familiar theme.  Father Cosmas had been a monk and priest, a brilliant man who had left the monastery and the priesthood years ago to marry.  “Here was a talented man who tore up his vows to God, who was unfaithful, first in little things.  He thought he knew better than anyone else, and then he met a woman and he  was gone.”

How could Freddie now admit that he wanted to leave because he wanted to marry, to have a family, to be normal?  That he wanted to see Marilyn,  and not feel so lonesome, so alone, so dreadfully alone.  How could he admit to this man that he longed for another taste of Marilyn’s forbidden lips, her kiss still lingering fresh and cool and inviting, the feel of her body against his?  That fresh, clean feeling of wellbeing, of being alive, totally alive.  A precious two seconds held in the balance against eternal fire.  He would burn forever,  with the worm crawling,  the worm that dies not.  The unquenchable fire.

The abbot’s face had gone livid, as it did whenever the dread topic of sex “reared its ugly head.”  Selfishness and pride and now sex.  “Straight down the road to hell, they all lead.  Awful about Cosmas.  That woman took away his precious priesthood.  He gave up being another Christ for the body of a woman.  What an exchange!  What a terrible, terrible tragedy befalls those who give in to Satan and sex.”  Once on this theme Abbot Ignatius could no longer stop himself.  He rolled his eyes heavenward and sneered. “You leave now and what you’re heading for, you selfish young fool, is destruction.”

Freddie tried to think what it was that changed in the old abbot’s expression. It was vaguely creepy, shocking and yet somehow thrilling.  It reminded Freddie of something he had felt years ago, something he had suppressed.  He had not been able to put a name to it.  Now he felt it again, that he was being stalked, being approached by a benign predator. Yes, he had seen that look in other eyes before.

Wave after relentless wave the abbot’s polemics had come, threatening to drown him, with no time to recover between them.  He was back working on the farm on a blistering hot day when he was shoveling wheat inside a grain bin during harvest.  The auger kept pouring the wheat in through the only opening, a square hole in the roof.  As the granary filled, the heat and dust became so oppressive that it threatened to suffocate him in the avalanche of grain. He fought his way up, gasping for air and scrambled to the hole to shout for relief.

Now he again felt equally trapped.  Like he could not breathe.  He knew he had to get away from this man, from this unnamed sinister blackness.  He looked for help from the twin images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and his Sorrowing Mother, whose blank countenances offered nothing but indifference to his plight.  The look of desperation was not lost on Abbot Ignatius.  Or was it revulsion?

He issued his final contemptuous challenge.  “Don’t you ever trust any woman, and that includes your mother and your sisters and don’t you ever forget that.” Furious now, jaws set, Abbot Ignatius sputtered, “Get up to the chapel right now, and ask God to forgive your selfishness and pride.  Give up your own will to the will of God.”

He thrust his ring into Freddie’s face for the kiss of subjection.

With his head spinning out of control, with the voice inside gone silent, Freddie rushed to the door, leaving Abbot Ignatius leaning against the chair.

Father Martin appeared out of nowhere.  “Well, how did it go?  What did the abbot say?”

Only a whisper, “Nothing, nothing I haven’t heard a  million times already.”

[This is a story, somewhat enhanced, based on my own experience in the church of St. Anthony in Lake Lenore when I was around 13 years old.]

THE VIGIL

Freddie worried. He worried a lot. Especially about things over which he had no control. All during the war he had nightmares of German soldiers jumping off the railway’s grain cars with bayonets drawn, and enemy airplanes dropping bombs on the village.

Most of all, he worried about God. God was everywhere, saw everything, knew everything. The major preoccupation in his life was worrying whether God would notice what he did, or didn’t do. The stained glass window at the back of church said it all — an enormous open eye. No moral crevice was tiny enough in which to hide. God kept a perfect record. The only way to have the stains of sin removed from his soul was to confess his sins fully to Father Martin. Freddie thought of the priest as the great eraser. He imagined his record smudged with many erasures. He worried about whether he had perhaps carelessly left out anything, and always included “for these sins and any others I may have forgotten I am truly sorry” at the end of each confession. He was not completely convinced that this really worked.

It was almost a year ago that Father Martin had finally pronounced Freddie’s mastery of the Latin prayers and the rituals of the acolyte as adequate for him to become an altar boy. Even the holy nuns were not permitted beyond the communion railings except to clean the floors, dust the furnishings, and arrange the flowers. Now he would be one of those nearest when the holy mysteries happened. He could not understand why some of the other altar boys played around or made rude jokes about holy things

In spite of the pride Freddie felt at being an altar boy, Father Martin often scolded him for daydreaming while at the altar. He would forget to ring the bell or change the book or bring up the water and wine at the right time. Often he dreamed of being a hero in some holy cause like Saint Stephen who was stoned to death for being a follower of Jesus, or like the crusaders who fought to restore the Holy Land to the church. Perhaps some day he would suffer or even die for the faith and he would be a hero, a saint. He hoped it would not be like St. Lawrence who was grilled to death over a slow fire, or St. Sebastian who was shot to death with a hundred arrows.

Not long after Germany surrendered to end the war in Europe, Father Martin announced a thanksgiving service of “Forty Hours.” Forty Hours was one of the most important devotional exercises in St. Gertrude’s parish. The Sanctuary Society women fussed all week preparing their most colourful bouquets, dusting every inch of the white shelves of the side altar, polishing the brass candle holders till they shone, all under Sister Agnes’s critical stare. She would move a candle an inch this way, then back again, lift a wayward flower from one vase to another where the colours matched better.

After High Mass, accompanied by clouds of incense and ringing of bells, Father Martin, dressed in special vestments, carried the Blessed Sacrament in procession up and down the centre aisle until he arrived at the side altar where he enthroned the Host high up in a special niche designed for that purpose. There it gleamed pure white amid the golden rays of the dazzling monstrance. For forty continuous hours members of the parish would take turns in adoration, never leaving the church unattended.

The altar boys had places of honor on kneelers right in front of the altar. Even though other people would come and spend time in the church, the altar boys assumed responsibility for making sure the church was never empty. They would dress in their long black cassocks and lace-trimmed white surplices, hair combed, hands and faces washed, so that the Lord would be pleased. Father Martin was always around to check. The younger servers took the day shifts and the older boys took the nights. Freddie looked forward to the time when he would be old enough to take a night watch. He dreamed of how brave he would be to rise past midnight and make his way to the church through unlit streets. He would have to walk over the wooden trestle bridge and past the cemetery. The church would be dark except for the banks of candles on the altar casting quivering shadows on the walls.

Freddie and his friend Donald drew the first watch after the late morning Mass. It was just past eleven o’clock. They knew this could be a long hour. They were hungry from their previous night’s fasting.

They soon tired of praying Hail Mary’s on their rosary beads and paging through devotional books. Their knees, though toughened by being altar boys, were not up to the demands now made on them. Father Martin had told them they could sit for short periods, but that it was better to kneel. Suffering would join them to the suffering of Jesus on the cross. They would be part of the mystery of salvation.

When the clock in the sacristy struck eleven-thirty, Donald had enough. He left without a word. It took Freddie a while to realize that he wasn’t coming back. How could he just walk out? Didn’t he care? Freddie was now alone, the sole protector of the Blessed Sacrament. He knelt a little straighter.

The clock in the sacristy chimed quarter to twelve. Its pleasant melody cheered Freddie. Soon a new shift would arrive. He decided to kneel for the last fifteen minutes. At exactly noon he heard old Mr. Langkammer at the back of the church. He listened to him climb the stairs leading to the tower beside the choir loft and ring out the Angelus. The old man left as suddenly as he had come, without so much as looking into the church.

Freddie hummed a hymn of thanksgiving and praise, believing that his time of waiting would soon be over. He could see himself coming home to his very own piece of chicken, for today, being special. Mamma would roast a whole chicken for her fatherless brood, and Freddie’s piece was a drumstick. Not a wing this time. Oh no, he would have a drumstick. It was his turn.

Quarter past rang out, and still no one came. He was not really surprised when his stomach began to ache, just a little at first, then working its way from discomfort to misery.   Half past twelve came and quarter to one. There was no sign of any movement anywhere around the church, as if the whole world had come to a dead stop. Freddie looked up at the statue of St. Therese of the Child Jesus high up on a pillar to the left of the altar. He recited an Our Father for each of the roses in her arms, then a Hail Mary and even a Glory Be.

Before he realized what was happening, Freddie began to fantasize. She was so lovely, with that enticing pink mouth, the unblemished skin, the immaculate little hands absentmindedly holding a great bundle of roses. Her eyes fixed on heaven, she was so much prettier than the village girls. What would it be like to be near one so perfect in every way? Would he talk with her, maybe even hold her hand? For the moment, he forgot his hunger and dreamed of meeting her. Was he falling in love? Now he could smell her sweetness, hear her beautiful voice. Before he could stop himself, he fancied himself kissing that perfect little mouth.

He burst into tears. What a horrible sin it was. How could he ever put this into words of confession? Surely it would be judged a sacrilege. A double sacrilege even to have such desires right in church. Maybe Father Martin would say it was too big a sin to forgive. Freddie would roast in hell for sure.

Freddie battled his conscience to convince himself that he had not really harbored any bad thoughts, that they had come unbidden, and were therefore unwelcome. He forced his mind to concentrate on his guardianship.

At one o’clock Freddie closed his eyes and saw himself lying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, dead of sheer exhaustion. People were gathering around his emaciated body.

“Couldn’t someone have come to help this poor young man?”

“What a hero.   He is now in heaven. A saint.”

They picked up his shrunken body and carried it away in triumph. Even Mamma didn’t cry. She was so proud to have a son who gave his life to protect Jesus in the Sacrament.

A seraphic smile glowed on his face for all eternity. Boys of every age flocked to become altar boys and emulate his heroic example. A shrine was erected in the village and became a place of pilgrimage for all of Canada. His statue would be placed in St. Gertrude’s Church, and when people prayed to him miracles would happen.

Then he saw himself leaving the church, going across the road to the parish house and telling Father Martin that he really needed to have something to eat, or at least a drink of water.

“And who is in church to protect the Blessed Sacrament?”

“Nobody.”

“You have left the church with no one to watch with the Lord?”

“Yes, but…”

“There can be no ‘buts’ with the Lord. You will no longer serve at the altar. You cannot be trusted with the Blessed Sacrament under your care. And if you ever thought of being a priest, you can forget that dream right now. You are not worthy. God would never call you, since you could not watch a little while longer at the tabernacle. Go home. Your mother will be very sad when she hears what you have to tell her. You have broken her heart. And mine. Now get out.”

Freddie dared not risk that. He thought of throwing himself down and lying there until the next shift arrived. Then they would feel sorry for him. But God would see the pretence and write still another black mark behind his name. In the final judgment the whole world would be told of his deceit right in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament.

It was almost two o’clock when a new pair of altar boys breezed in, warm and sweaty from a ball game. With indifferent genuflections at the high altar, they took their places in front of the altar of adoration.

On the way home Freddie had to run the gauntlet of a swarm of cousins playing ball along the grassy roadway. He walked directly through the infield. He could feel the holiness encasing him like the aura around the pictures of saints. They would surely stop the ball game to stand in reverence as he passed, shading their eyes from the glory surrounding him. The older ones would cross themselves. With hands still folded in prayer from the long vigil, he would glide along, scarcely touching the ground. One of the girls would reach out to touch him, then pull her hand back in awe.

In reality, they did notice Freddie’s passage. “Get off the diamond, you stupid little bugger!”

But at home he surely would be greeted by a solicitous Mamma. She was sitting on the chesterfield in the corner, paging through the Spring and Summer Eaton’s catalog. She didn’t take her eyes off the page. The table was empty. Freddie looked for his piece of chicken. The kitchen was all cleaned up, the dishes put away, no sign of any chicken.

“I thought maybe you had something with Father Martin, or the Sisters.”

“No, Mamma.”

“There’s bread and butter in the pantry. You can put a little jam on it too.”

This story won First Runner Up in a Grain competition and was published in the February, 2011, issue of that magazine.

THE STOOKER

“Hey, Buddy, what d’you think you’re doing?”

The crisp voice startled him out of delicious sleep. Ben was on his way home. Because he was in no particular hurry, he had cut across country roads rather than stay on the busier, dustier gravel highway.

It had been one of those stiflingly hot days in late August. A typical Saskatchewan day when the prairie air refused to move. All day long the dry, gray powder between the rows of stubble had baked into Ben’s well-worn boots, crept up the inside of his overall pantlegs, gritted in his teeth, mingled with the salty sweat of his forehead to sting his eyes into a permanent squint.

Nothing in the day warned him that this day would end in any other way than such days usually did. The work was done, and you simply went home and got to bed.

The sun had just slipped below the horizon, leaving long, lingering fingers of delicate pinks and yellows and soft greens all the way around to the eastern sky. With the sun gone, the hot earth seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Birds busily harvested the rich array of insects that always greeted the end of day.

But Ben was still hot, hot from the memory of the scorching day of stooking. He had had hardly more than two good swigs from the water jug all day. It seemed that every time the binder came around with it, he was far down a windrow, and he didn’t like to lose the rhythm of his stooking.

Ben was a good stooker. He even thought of himself as a great stooker. And he loved work. Even when the prairie air practically choked him, he loved work.

Ben gave the appearance of being a big man. Not really tall at 5-foot-10, he seemed taller with his massive round shoulders, and his big chunky chest, and his big belly.

Ben was one of those stookers who grabbed a bunch of straw just below the twine, picking up one bundle in each hand. With almost effortless grace he swung the bundles together and stood them up leaning against each other. Eight bundles made a single stook. He looked with pride at his sturdy stooks. No wind would knock them over. No fall rain would hurt them. And if they stayed out all winter, they would be ready for the thresh-machine in the spring.

And he saw to it that his stooks were well-rowed. Given good weather, the threshing crew would be around in a few weeks with the bundle teams and hay racks, and Ben did not want them to have to traipse all over the field for scattered stooks.

Yes, Ben could look back at his work with satisfaction, not because he had made a few bucks — that was nice — but because it felt so good to work, to work in a field that was going to make a farmer glad he had planted wheat in the spring.

And because it happened to be Saturday.

He had pulled his rusting half-ton a few feet off the narrow road onto a rutted and almost hidden driveway, where grass and weeds had grown unchecked. He licked his unwashed, stubbled mouth in eager anticipation as he cracked open a Black Label.

He pushed back comfortably in his seat, then decided to open both doors to let the evening air blow through. He took a long, long pull at the bottle and settled back again. He closed his eyes. Row on row of beautifully capped wheat stooks climbed over gently rolling fields.

A tractor roared a long way away. He could hear the busy clacking of the binder as it formed the bundles, tied them, and kicked them out onto the carrier. Someone was working late.

A bird fluttered uncertainly over the hood of the truck and then went on. A kingbird, Ben decided, without checking. Then again, it could have been a red-winged blackbird.

Ah, it was a soul-happy time, harvest time. He wrapped his horny knuckles securely around his bottle, propped it up on his overall bib, and slid down lower in his seat.

He was only dimly aware of the car passing slowly and stopping. He jerked awake at the voice.

He was staring up into the cold, efficient eyes of a very young R.C.M.P. constable. Some of his beer, in fact, most of it, had spilled down over his bib and down into his lap.

“My name is Ben, and I’m having a beer.”

“Step out of your vehicle. I want your driver’s license, your registration, and proof of insurance.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Ben dragged himself out of the truck, suddenly bone-weary and desperately angry. Like a bear, he staggered forward when his left leg refused to carry his weight. It had fallen asleep. He fell against the constable and landed on top of him, their faces almost touching.   Revolted by the smell of beer and sweat, afraid that he was under attack, the constable rolled away and reached for his service pistol as he scrambled to his feet.

“Hey! Hold on there. I fell.”

“You know you’re breaking the law, don’t you?”

Having made a quick inspection of the cab, the constable began to copy pertinent information from Ben’s documents. But he kept a wary eye on the big man’s bloodshot eyes just slightly below the level of his own. Even though only one bottle had been opened, he could not be sure just how much this sturdy farmer had consumed. He could not clearly distinguish between the smell of spilled beer and the breath from the mouth twisting in anger and frustration.

“You can get back in.” But Ben didn’t move. He would stand and talk face to face, man to man.

“Sure I know what the law says. But look. I wasn’t hurting anybody. I was minding my own business, and this is my own truck. See, I’ve only had less than half a bottle of beer. Just what’s so dang wrong with having a beer beside the road?”

“Sorry, Buster, but the law says . . .”

“My name is Ben.”

“The law says you can’t drink in a vehicle. And you’re on road allowance. That’s public property. I’ll have to charge you.”

“Why in God’s name do you have to charge me? I’m not drunk. I haven’t bothered anybody. I’m not making any trouble. I have no intention of getting drunk and I’ll not be driving home drunk. You surely don’t have to charge me.”

“Look. You try to be a good farmer, and I try to be a good cop. You’re breaking the law and will receive a summons.”

“Why?”

“The law says . . .”

“Do you mean to tell me I am doing worse than those buggers back there in the beer parlor? Half of those guys are going to drink more than they should, and they’ll be on the road.”

“They’re not breaking the law. You are.”

“Shit on the Goddam law, and little farts like you!”

He pushed his way past the constable, plunked himself squarely into his seat and lurched back onto the road.

At first, much of the joy was gone from the rest of the harvest.   Ben smoldered with deep resentment at the stupidity of a law that couldn’t make allowances for a decent man to have a quiet beer by the side of the road on a hot Saturday evening after a glorious day of stooking in a thirty-bushel-to-the-acre wheat field, at the arrogance of a clean-scrubbed young constable who acted as if this was the first ticket he had ever written, who needed to please his boss, show him what a good little cop he was going to be.

Then cooler emotions began to push the anger aside. Ben made up his mind that he would not pay a fine, not under any circumstances. They could jail him first. Nor would he get a lawyer. No one was going to get one red cent of the money he earned out there stooking.

He knew he would have to plead guilty. That was obvious. But he would simply tell the truth, the unvarnished truth, the whole of it, and rely on the magistrate’s sense of simple justice. Yes, he thought that would be best. In the sweet sweat of physical toil his zest for life returned and stayed with him till the end of harvest.

He rehearsed what he would say in court a million times. Over and over, he saw himself, the simple farm laborer, in the crowded courtroom. With commonplace logic and simple eloquence he would point out the difference between the law and justice. He could see the judge nodding solemnly as he made his points. He heard the gavel. “Case dismissed!”

His trial date came late in November when no more farm jobs needed doing. He felt content and confident.

The courtroom was nothing at all like his imagination had painted it. The language, the efficiency, confused him. He was caught off guard by the reference to offensive behavior to an officer of the crown. They used numbers for sections of the law. The judge offered him no chance to speak in his own defense. At least, he did not hear anything like that. He did hear the judge say he could seek counsel, but Ben only shook his head.

“I then sentence you to two weeks at hard labor in the Prince Albert Penitentiary.”

Ben served his time the same way he stooked. What the heck, he figured, he had worked harder, eaten worse meals, slept in a poorer bed. And in the end it hadn’t cost him a penny.