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Show CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR We attended church as a family, my grandparents, Aunt Felicia and Uncle Joe, my cousins, my parents and I. Mother had been asked years before to be the church organist but she had refused, telling the elders that she wanted to worship with her family, telling Father and me that she couldn't abide most sacred music. So we all sat together, filling the same pew Sunday after Sunday in what was accepted as the MacLeod pew. One Sunday, the minister, a man with exuberant white hair which matched his rolling voice, announced that there would be a short congregational meeting following the service to discuss the war memorial. I glanced at Father in time to see him look at Mother. At the end of the service, no one left. People arranged themselves more comfortably on the hard wooden seats, the organist closed the organ, and the ushers blew out the candles. The minister came down the three steps from the altar and stood in front of the congregation, his hands folded across his stomach. "My friends, we have before us a proposal which I know is close to many of our hearts." He cleared his throat. "We all have suffered losses in the great war just past, some of us more directly than others." He paused and looked around the seated congregation. He cleared his throat again and then went on. "A number of community and church leaders feel that the time has come to show our appreciation to those young men who made the supreme sacrifice, to express our community's love for those who answered their country's call to duty." Mother rearranged her skirts and I glanced up at her. She was smiling a little and her eyes were bright. |