The Playground Behind the Church

Nine Lutherans in a basement

The fellowship hall at St. Paul smells of coffee, floor wax, and about ten thousand church suppers. Linoleum tile, a stage with a faded blue curtain, a pass-through window into the kitchen, and a row of nine people at a long table with their arms crossed.

Alvin Gruber was among them.

You should know about Alvin. He is seventy-nine, a retired hog farmer, a widower for six years, and a man who says about forty words in a church meeting, thirty of them “second the motion.” His wife Verna had taught Sunday school at St. Paul for thirty-one years.

He was the man who had walked up to Josie’s stand in August with a lard pail full of quarters, set it on her card table, and said, “That’s a hundred. Count it if you want.” Then he turned around and walked back to his truck before she could thank him.

Pastor Lindquist stood at the head of the table. “Our friends Katie and Josie Keller have a request,” he said, and sat down, and just like that it was ours.

Josie stepped up on the little step stool they had set behind the podium so she could be seen. She opened her notebook. She cleared her throat the way she does when she reads aloud at school.

“My name is Josie Keller,” she said. “I’m ten. I raised eight thousand dollars for a playground. These are the people who helped me.”

And then she began to read.

She read every single name. I had not asked her to. She went down the pages in a steady, flat voice, and she said the amount beside each name. The trucker from Nebraska. The Lions Club. Chief Moeller’s firemen, listed as one name because there were nineteen of them. The pickle jar at Casey’s.

It took six minutes. Nobody coughed. A woman at the end of the table took off her glasses and pressed her fingers against her eyelids, and did not put them back on.

When she got to the last page, Josie read the final line, closed the notebook, and said, “That’s everybody. Thank you for listening.”

The room was very quiet.

Pastor Lindquist looked down the table. “Any questions?”

There was one. Alvin Gruber stood up slowly, with one hand on the table to push himself off his chair.

“I’ve got one,” he said. “How soon can we pour concrete?”

Nine hands went up. It was not even a vote, really. It was the kind of unanimous that comes after something has already been decided in people’s hearts and the paperwork is catching up.

Josie turned to look at me. Her face was doing the thing again, the very still and very polite thing, but this time it was cracking right down the middle. I held on to the edge of my chair.