25. The Rev. Lowell E. Morris ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

“Your Grandpa and Grandma Morris are coming to dinner today,” Ida reminded the boys. “Robert, I need you to dust, and, Charles, I want you to straighten up your room and put all your toys away.”

Whenever the demands of a farm permitted, the family traveled southeast to Kirklin, Indiana, to visit Grandpa and Grandma Morris. He was the minister of the Methodist Church there. Before Robert could remember, the Morrises had lived in Westville, Indiana, where Ida taught school for the first time after earning her teaching degree at Indiana State Teachers College. Throughout his long working life, Grandpa Morris had taught school in Kentucky and Montana, and had served as minister in such Hoosier towns as Circleville, Frankfort, Hillsboro, Indianapolis, Newtown, Pence, Pittsboro, Waveland, and Wheatfield.

The Morrises came to see Ida, Joe, Charles, and Robert whenever a busy minister could find an opportunity.

Robert's mother had told the boys, “They’re not related to you the way grandparents usually are, but they’re your grandparents, all the same.” Robert had failed to understand what such a cryptic statement meant, but, just by listening to the adults’ conversation, he had discerned that the Reverend Lowell Everett Morris was Ida’s surrogate father who had taken her under his wing when she was a thirteen-year-old girl in the Methodist Children’s Home in Lebanon, Indiana.

Using the dust cloth that his mother handed him, Robert carefully cleaned the surfaces of the furniture in the living room while Charles repeatedly filled a cardboard box with toys that he then deposited in a small room at the foot of the stairway.

Robert enjoyed visits from Grandpa Morris, who was an educated gentleman with thick glasses, thin nose, thin face, thin hands, a ready smile, and … a toupee. Robert’s father had said that Grandpa Morris gave the best sermons of any preacher Joe had heard because Grandpa Morris researched his topics thoroughly, wrote compellingly, and spoke eloquently. Robert had never heard him in the pulpit, but, when Joe married Ida, the Rev. Morris was the minister at the Methodist Church in Pine Village, and he officiated at their wedding, which took place at the parsonage. Robert had no reason to doubt his father’s assessment of Grandpa Morris’ abilities as a scholar, a writer, and an orator. At all times, Grandpa Morris’ intelligence and his intellectual attainments were obvious to Robert. (Many years later, Robert had the opportunity to hear Grandpa Morris give a guest sermon at the Methodist Church in Pine Village, and Robert was appropriately appreciative. Grandpa Morris quoted great literature while constructing an argument of biblical interpretation worthy of an English department degree in a leading university. His delivery was impeccable!)

Before long, Ida greeted Grandpa and Grandma Morris at the front door and welcomed them into the living room. Grandma Morris’ name was Fern. She was Grandpa Morris’s second wife. His first wife, Ella, had died many years earlier.

While Joe put the guests’ coats on the bed in the main bedroom, Ida asked about their drive.

“We made good time,” Grandpa Morris said. “We talked about little else other than how much we were going to enjoy another one of your home-cooked meals.”

Ida excused herself to return to the kitchen while Joe, who taught the adult class at the church, talked to the Rev. Morris about recent class activities. Soon, Ida called everyone to the dinner table.

Grandpa Morris said the grace: “Father, we ask that you bless this food to our good and us to thy service, and we ask a special blessing for the hands that prepared this dinner.”

Then a heaping platter of fried chicken was passed to Fern. Next came bowls of mashed potatoes, lima beans, and corn. A gravy boat made the rounds. Side dishes included strawberry Jell-O with banana slices. Ida had made her yeast rolls for the occasion. They were fat and fluffy! The conversation flowed effortlessly, with Grandpa Morris talking about various churches he had served, including Flackville near Indianapolis. Ida had lived with the Rev. Morris and Ella in Flackville while Ida taught elementary school in Indianapolis. Grandpa Morris also spoke about his service to the settlement schools in eastern Kentucky when he was a young man starting out. Robert listened intently to the Rev. Morris’ stories about the mountain boys and girls that, so long ago, had attended the Red Bird Mission School to learn skills that could readily be put to use.

While the dessert of angel food cake was being served, Grandpa Morris said, “I have good news. Fern and I will be moving back to Pine Village.”

Ida beamed and glanced happily toward Joe, as he said with a big smile, “You don’t say!”

“Yes, I do say!” Grandpa Morris confirmed with a smile bigger than Joe’s. “I have decided to retire from the active ministry, and Fern and I want to live here. A house is available less than a block south of the Methodist Church, and we intend to sign for it.”

“It’ll be so nice to have you living nearby!” Ida exclaimed.

“We wanted to surprise you,” said Grandpa Morris.

“You’ve done that alright,” said Ida.

“I’ve always felt a special connection to the church here in Pine Village,” Grandpa Morris continued. “This is Fern’s hometown, and we want to be near you and your family.”

A few months later, the Morrises moved into a tidy white house on the east side of Jefferson Street. A few steps led up to the front porch. The front door opened into a cozy living room. Quite often, Robert’s family looked in on Grandpa and Grandma Morris, who were frequent guests at Sunday dinner. Grandpa Morris usually could be found sitting in an easy chair with his feet up while he was reading a book or a church magazine. Robert liked visiting the Morrises because Grandpa Morris had a special place in his heart for Robert and Charles.

Once, on a hot summer day, Grandpa Morris walked up to see Ida and Joe. He found Robert trying to saw a board that Robert wanted for a birdhouse that needed a new bottom. The handsaw’s teeth had become flattened through hard use, and Robert was making only slow progress.

“Let me show you how to saw,” Grandpa Morris said. Robert gladly let the Rev. Morris take over.

“You want to move your arm straight back and forth from the elbow,” Grandpa Morris instructed. Then he began to demonstrate.

The saw caught and bowed, so Grandpa Morris pulled back on it to straighten it out. He slowly drew the saw in the groove to give it a good start. He again tried to demonstrate how to work the saw forward and back, but it snagged as before.

The saw kept jamming up. Beads of perspiration were forming on Grandpa Morris’ forehead and trickling down his neck. He unbuttoned his outer shirt, removed it, and draped it across the clothesline. In the process, he bumped his toupee, which slipped to one side. He straightened it, and then, with his undershirt clinging to the perspiration, he threw himself into the project with all his strength. By the sheer power of his will, Grandpa Morris finally managed to saw through the board.

He grinned, handed the saw back to Robert, reclaimed his shirt, put it on (this time carefully, so as not to dislodge his toupee), and buttoned it up. “As Ecclesiastes says,” Grandpa Morris began, “‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might!’ I think I will ask Ida for some of her sweet iced tea now.”

Robert thanked Grandpa Morris for the lesson.

Experiencing Nature in Warren County, Indiana 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

It’s odd how the memory works. When I was in high school, I parked my 1953 Packard along Old 55 and took a short walk down a narrow stream that fed Big Pine Creek nearby. It was noon on a summer’s day. The red-winged blackbirds were trilling. The general buzz of insect life was less along the water than in the meadows above, and I heard the water trickling around smooth stones.

The Tranquility of a Stream

Drawing by Bruce Crane (1857–1937)

Engraved by John Sanderson Dalziel (1839–1937)

In The Closing Scene

Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1887

The colors in the stream bed were magnificent: pale green rocks within a setting of vibrant ocher and tan. I was surprised but not scared when I detected the tail of a blue racer snake as it hid from me in the sedge. Higher up the bank, monarch and black swallowtail butterflies visited the tall flowers of the old meadows. The stretches of pebbly earth beside the water twinkled with cabbage, sulphur, and alfalfa butterflies. An occasional dragonfly buzzed past, as if on a mission.   

I recall feeling at peace with the earth. The sensation was profound. It endured for the interval of time that I was strolling near the water. The drifting clouds in the bright azure sky accompanied me both above and in reflection while I took a few steps and paused to appreciate a wildflower before taking a few more steps and pausing again.

Since that summer’s day years ago, I have met celebrities, toured historical sites, visited great cities, and crossed the ocean, but none of the memories that I have made while engaged in these later activities have been as sharply detailed, as deeply engraved, and as often revisited as my recollection of the tributary to Big Pine Creek in my hometown. When I parked my car that day, I had no intention of making a mental archive of details that I would examine again and again for decades, but a treasury of a fleeting moment was stored in my mind forever.

During the harrowing events of life later on, the memory of looking closely at an often overlooked section of a stream has helped restore tranquility in the midst of chaos.

Whenever the author and editor William Dean Howells broke in a new ink pen, he wrote the name of his hometown of Hamilton, Ohio. One of America’s literary giants, Howells published 35 novels, 35 plays, 34 miscellaneous books, 6 books of literary criticism, 4 books of poetry, and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. He shaped the destiny of fellow writers by editing their work for The Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Magazine. In his book titled A Boy’s Town (1890), Howells wrote that Hamilton “was a town peculiarly adapted for a boy to be a boy in.” Although Howells lived and worked in Boston and New York, as well as having served as a consul in Venice, his pleasant upbringing in Hamilton was his foundation. While I remember the tiny stream that flowed into Big Pine Creek, I understand why Howells wrote the name “Hamilton” as naturally as he took his next breath.

Experiencing Nature in Warren County, Indiana 5

Where I grew up (Pine Village, Indiana), the black loam of the flat farmland stretched to the horizon’s cobalt line encircling the viewer. The dome of the sky cupped the life below. Few trees interrupted the view of clouds, of sunrises, of sunsets. Toward the back of our farm, nearly a mile long, a hedge had managed to hold on in a fencerow. Buffeted by the blizzards of winter and the winds of early spring, the Osage orange trees looked splintered and forlorn, their spiky limbs reaching down as if to grab the earth to keep from being blown away. For many years, a family of foxes lived among the hedge apples.

A Fox in Winter

Engraving by Henry Wolf (1852–1916)

In Harper’s New Monthly Magazine

December 1884

When disking the earth, I occasionally glimpsed a red fox skipping home, its fluffy tail, almost as big as its body, flying behind and its dark legs flashing like a gentleman’s tall boots during Great Britain’s Regency Era. The white of its cheeks and chin only emphasized the fox’s slight grin, amused at its own cleverness, probably. In moments, the fox vanished amid the tangle of weeds wrapped around the trunks of the venerable Osage orange trees.

Once on an ominous night in the spring, I shook Spot’s leash, and he came running to go for a walk beyond the fenced yard. Spot was my family’s fox terrier, and a much admired dog was he! When he enjoyed an activity, he more than enjoyed it: he loved it! … and he adored going for a walk!

Spot and I set out toward the north past the security of the house, barn, and outbuildings. We took the well-beaten path that the tractors took beside the fields. The wind came in long exhalations that could be heard far off before it could be felt. The air was chilled but not frozen, as it had been in the recent winter. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw small gray clouds scudding overhead. They appeared to be so low that I could touch them, but such was merely an illusion.

Now and then, Spot tugged on the leash, and I quickened my pace to keep up with him. He was having the time of his life, turning his head from side to side, sampling the smorgasbord of smells low to the ground. After a time, we reached the back of the farm. Spot wanted to explore the hedgerow, so I followed him as he trotted toward the gnarled trees.

Suddenly, we heard a growl. “Fox,” I immediately thought. Instinctively, I grabbed Spot around his belly and lifted him to my chest. As the moon broke from behind clouds, I saw the ghostly white of the fox’s face staring in our direction. I backed slowly away. The fox began taking slow steps toward us. Just then, I heard a yipping and yelping that could only be from kits. Sure enough, four pups came tumbling out of the weeds to prance around the legs of their mother!

I kept backing up until I was in the center of the freshly plowed field. Keeping my balance was tricky, as the clods were tilted wherever the plowshares had left them. Growling continually, the mother fox had followed us to a distance of perhaps thirty feet from her den. Abruptly, she whipped around and ran back among the trees, her cubs leaping and tumbling about her in what they perhaps perceived as a game.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Walking back to the house, I traversed a considerable distance before I thought it was safe to put Spot back on the ground. I complimented him because he had refrained from barking throughout the entire encounter with the fox family. I suppose that my hugging him tightly to my body had persuaded him that we were in a potentially dangerous situation, and his instincts likely convinced him that he was better off to remain silent. I think that, had he barked, he might have incited the fox somehow, and I was glad that he had kept his mouth shut.    

Experiencing Nature in Warren County, Indiana 4

When we lived on the edge of town and it was my turn to fetch the cows, I set out—say, on a summer’s eve—through a wide gate secured by a stout wire. The barn stood behind me, and the meadow stretched beyond me. I sauntered along the path the cows had made. A narrow and dusty line, the path snaked through the pasture. It remained visible several feet ahead but kept curving out of sight. The farther it went, the thinner it became as the clover and timothy vied with the dried ribbon of earth.

Cows in the Pasture

Drawing by Henry Singlewood Bisbing (1849–1933)

Engraved by Charles H. Reed (1843–?)

In An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1885

Around me was a cacophony of insect music. Katydids (both broad and narrow) and snowy tree crickets were keening so loudly that I could hardly hear myself talk. Cabbage butterflies, alfalfa butterflies, and sulphur butterflies flitted and bobbed like winking waves of light. Monarch butterflies and black swallowtails sailed on updrafts of heat.

The countryside smelled like rich chamomile tea. The herbage ranged from ochre to green, from yellow to tan. As I drifted along, my mind became less focused, more detached—almost as if I were observing myself from above but not recognizing myself as myself.

Having almost reached the fence bordering the meadow on the east, I found the cows. The dozen or so Holsteins were standing in the shade of a venerable tree with widely arching branches that made it seem out of place with no giraffes nearby. The cows were chewing their cud and regarding me through deep blue eyes with long lashes. Now and then, their tails swung indolently to try to discourage flies that were hardly inconvenienced by the motion.

I spoke to the leader, calling her by her name: “Buttercup, it’s time.” Slowly, she gathered her hooves beneath her weight then launched forward like a swaying ship. One by one, the others fell into place behind her. Buttercup joined the trail near me. I stood politely, waiting for each cow to get in line. When the last cow passed me, I began to stroll along at the end of the small herd, and I kept pace with the cows.

Black-and-white spotted flanks and rumps tilted to one side then the other, oscillating and undulating in sleep-inducing rhythms. Swinging in slow motion, the Holsteins followed the path exactly. I wondered why the trail bent and curved so often. When the first cow charted the route, was she simply unable to draw a straight line, or did she obey a secret feng shui known only to cows?

Eventually, the Holsteins filed through the gate, and my father called to them, welcoming them into the barn for milking. They were so tame that they required no persuasion; they honored my father’s invitation.