The Bible School Under the Cottonwood

Why I Didn’t Fight

People have asked me since why I did not go to the next council meeting and raise Cain.

I could have. I had two votes on my side already, and I know how to read a budget better than anyone on that council.

But I had seen what happens. Twenty years ago the church in the next town over split down the middle over whether to replace the carpet in the sanctuary.

Half of them still drive thirty miles to a different church rather than sit with the other half.

Our church has sixty people. If I made it a fight, it would be my side and Tammy’s side, and the people in the middle would have to choose, and some of them would choose to stay home. We could not afford to lose one family.

And Tammy was my friend. I could not quite get my mind around that part. Twenty years of coffee and funerals and recipe swaps, and she had not called me before the vote. She had told me in a parking lot.

So I did not fight. I did not post anything. I did not say one word against the Fargo program to anybody, and when people asked, I said it sounded fun and they should sign up if they could.

But I kept thinking about those farm kids, and Logan in the trailer, and the empty week in June where there used to be songs.

The Kitchen Table

I brought it up with Steve on a Tuesday night in May, at the kitchen table, while he was eating rhubarb crisp out of the pan with a spoon because he thought I was not looking.

“What if I just did it here,” I said. “In the yard. Free. Same week as the church one, so nobody’s left out. Just for the kids who can’t go.”

He chewed for a while. Steve thinks before he talks, which is one of the reasons I married him and also one of the reasons I sometimes want to shake him.

“Would Tammy take it as a slap?” he asked.

“I don’t want it to be a slap,” I said. “I want it to be Bible school.”

“That’s not what I asked.” He set the spoon down. “Those are two different things, and you know it. What she thinks is up to her. What you mean is up to you. Just be sure what you mean.”

I thought about that for a long time. Then I said, “I mean it for the kids. If any of them can go to the church one, I’ll tell them to go.”

“Then do it,” he said. “I’m spraying beans that week. But I’ll get you the tables.”

Getting Ready

There is nothing official you need to have Bible school in your own backyard. No license, no permit, no sign-off from anybody.

It is the same as having a birthday party with a lot of cake and a little more Jesus.

I did call our insurance agent in town, because I am a bookkeeper and I worry. He said a free gathering at our place was covered under the farm policy the same as a family reunion. He also said to make sure nobody climbed the grain bins.

I made a permission slip on the computer at the co-op. Child’s name, parent’s phone number, allergies, and whether it was all right to put their picture on the fridge. I printed fifty, just in case.

Then I did the shopping. Glue, yarn, construction paper, paper plates, two big bags of cotton balls, washable paint, Kool-Aid, sunscreen, and enough graham crackers to build a house.

It came to $212. Steve said that was the cheapest way to make me happy he had ever seen.

Marlene, the retired teacher who had handed me the shoebox twelve years before, heard about it at the post office. She called that night. She was eighty-one and had a new hip, and she said, “I’ll do crafts. Sitting down. Don’t argue.”

The co-op manager gave me two cases of paper cups and a five-gallon water cooler. The Legion lent six picnic tables. The bar owner, of all people, dropped off ten pounds of sliced cheese and said, “Don’t tell anybody it came from me.”

Our son Noah is fifteen and does not talk much, but on the Saturday before, he took a sheet of plywood and a can of white barn paint and painted a big plain cross on the side of the garage.

It took him all afternoon. He did not ask if I wanted it. He just did it.

Our daughter Emma, who is seventeen and has opinions about everything, made the name tags out of cardboard and baler twine and told me my songs were cringe and then learned every motion so she could lead them.

I did not put anything on the church Facebook page. I did not put anything on my own page either.

I told the families I knew could not pay, and I told them to tell anybody else, and I let it go from there.