THE ROAD TO SUNDAY SCHOOL

On Sunday mornings in the summer, Daddy would take Margaret and Jenny to the Presbyterian Church in town where Sunday School began at ten o”clock and lasted for a whole hour. They would be scrubbed and brushed and dressed in their best clothing , carrying dainty hankies with coins tied in one corner for the collection . Mother would put a tiny dab of lovely smelling perfume on their hankies.

Jenny’s favorite route to Church was the one that led through the “Toonerville” town, a few blocks of tiny unpainted houses, outdoor toilets and sheds, with bare ground, unkempt junk filled yards where ragged children and scrawny pets played. There were always goats climbing on sheds and housetops or tethered in the yards. Tire swings hung from low branches with ditches worn underneath from many feet. Once Jenny saw a boy on wooden stilts. Sometimes there would be a kite flying high overhead, and in midsummer, many yards had tall hollyhocks planted around rubbish piles , which gave beauty to even the meanest surroundings. There was no electrical, water or telephone service in the area.

Another nearby route led through a tree shaded road where the town’s untreated sewage ran into a small creek. The affluent people in town hardly gave a thought as to what happened after they flushed their stools or ran dirty water down the drain. The important thing to them was that it made life tidier and easier for them. When Daddy and Margaret and Jenny took this road on a hot summer morning with the car windows rolled down, Jenny and Margaret would pinch their nostrils shut and say in nasally voices “Phew! I smell the sewer.” Nothing on the whole farm ever smelled this bad. Daddy sometimes took the civilized route down Main Street and turned west onto another paved street that led to the Church, but it wasn’t nearly as “scenic.” Perhaps he too enjoyed the more colorful route. Possibly it reassured him that life on the farm wasn’t half bad.

While the girls were in Sunday School, he would either hang out at the filling station where his brother worked, or at the drug store run by his brother-in-law. It was a pleasant way for him to spend the hour. When Sunday School was over he might take the girls to the drug store for ice cream or to the filling station for pop. It was still early enough that it wouldn’t ruin their appetites for lunch. He took much joy in being able to provide occasional treats for his beloved daughters.