Excerpt

10. Garden City

The riding plow squeaked and groaned as the straining team pulled it across the field. Aaron's furrows were straight and the rich black earth pulled loose and turned into overlapping folds like waves in a black sea. Nothing could match the intoxicating smells of spring, the aroma of the plum blossoms in the thicket by the fence, the savory warm air and even the sweet smells of the fresh-turned soil itself .

Aaron and Opel were pleased with the eighty-acre farm they had rented in the center of the Mennonite community. In fact, the farm was located about halfway between the Bethel Mennonite church to the south and the Sycamore Grove Mennonite church to the north. Long, long ago, Aaron's oldest sister had been baptized in the waters of Clearfork Creek flowing under the bridge by Sycamore Grove Church.

The dirt, hedge-lined road, running by their house connected the two churches. They were poor renters who'd planted themselves in the middle of prosperous farmers, whose farms reflected their thrift, skill, and industriousness. Though the Aaron Yoder family shared the same surname as several of the surrounding Mennonite families, there was a difference. They knew and felt that they were outsiders. They were ignorant of Mennonite tradition and belief, feeling slightly guilty and unworthy among these strict and orderly people. As far as the meaning, tradition, and heritage long associated with the Amish Mennonite name, Yoder, their name might just as well have been Stick-in-the-Mud.

Life was hard for this family of four, recent arrivals from Arkansas. Feeling the economic depression that had almost ground the country to a halt, being renters and facing the oppressive, humid Missouri heat, they still chose their present lot over raking through the rocks of Arkansas, calling it farming.

Aaron and the boys loaded the crate of eggs into the back seat of the dusty Ford. Next, Aaron lifted up the cream can, placing it between Ted's legs. Opel came out the back door, wearing her town dress, carrying her purse.

The car started. Aaron backed it up, then eased down the steep driveway to the graded, dirt road leading towards Garden City, where they would market their produce and buy their staples. Neither of the boys had yet seen the bleak town ahead, as it existed in 1936.

The car gathered speed as they chugged over the dark, freshly graded dirt road. Osage orange hedges leaned over the ditches, providing cool shade on the right side where Opel sat.

Beyond a break in the hedge came a wide green pasture, where a herd of Herefords grazed. Ahead on the right was a tall white building, shaded by some old catalpa and elm trees. Drawing closer, the boys pointed to the sign hanging above the double front doors:

BETHEL MENNONITE CHURCH. They chugged on. If Aaron was aware that this was where his father once stood behind the pulpit to preach, as a Mennonite, he did not mention it. The car coughed. Dust began to gather behind them ..

"Go careful, Aaron." Opel turned to him with a frown. The bump in the road had jolted the Ford. "Don't want no eggs broken." She had a serious look on her tanned face.

Aaron brought the car to a halt at the stop sign. After looking both ways, he let out the clutch and eased up onto the pavement that would lead them into town. The pavement ran parallel to an old railroad bed that once had connected Garden City and Clinton with Springfield, Missouri. Now it was crowded with sumac and elderberry bushes. Cows grazed here and there. A peeling sign ahead read, GARDEN CITY, POPULATION 840.

"Where's the garden?" asked Ted, looking ahead expectantly. He always became alert at any sign of flowers.

"Ah, there's not no garden, silly," replied his more practically bent brother, unaware of the double negative.

The forlorn town rose up starkly in the clear summer air. Heat radiated upward from the tired-looking buildings and graveled street. Tall weeds in the vacant lots were reminders of business places that had long disappeared through fire or lack of prosperity. The few shabby stores along the south side of Main Street were in stark contrast to a newly remodeled, glass-tiled Wilhite's Department Store. This store seemed to be Garden's City's major redeeming quality. Merchants and citizens alike had lost hope when the railroad that was to have brought prosperity and fulfillment was discontinued.

The boys sat on the worn back seat of the car, watching the few shoppers mosey along in the heat. Bent-backed men in faded overalls and straw hats dragged along the sidewalk. Their steps lacked a certain eagerness. Marks of the depression showed upon the town and the citizens. Now and then, a black bonneted Mennonite woman, purse over her arm, strode up the broken walk, appearing certain of her purpose in God's ordered world.

Aaron had ambled off to a tiny store at the opposite end of Main Street so Opel wouldn't know he'd purchased a plug of chewing tobacco. He dreaded the consequences, should she find out.

The boys, tired of waiting, joined their mother in Wilhite's store.

She bought only the most necessary items, a sack of flour, a twenty pound bag of sugar, a large package of navy beans, and a sack of cornmeal. Hastily she turned back to a shelf to pick up one-dozen jar lids for her Ball canning jars.

When Opel and the boys, who were carrying the bags of groceries, returned to the Model-A, parked by the dusty curb, they found old Mennonite farmer Troyer leaning in the window, smiling and trying to be neighborly to the wayfaring Aaron, whose father had once preached in Farmer Troyer's church, long ago.

"We've gotta go-gotta git home," said Opel, climbing in the Ford and slamming the thin door. Always in a hurry, she was already thinking about the green beans in her garden that might need canning.