The Grantville Gazette - Vol 9 Part 38

I took the lists down to the office, to have names cross reference to complaints for the report.

"Then I drove out to the Jenkin's place to let Joe know what he'd gotten into so he could get out before he got hurt. And let me tell you did I get an ear full!"

"Joe, what's this I hear about you starting a church for a mess of bad news Germans the Baptists threw out because they're Armenian Anabaptist?"

"Lyndon, first off,all Baptists are Anabaptist. They only baptize adults. It is true most Baptists are Calvinist, but a few of us are Arminians."

Lyndon was shocked and puzzled. Joe sounded proud of it. So he asked, "What is an Armenian?"

"An Armenian is someone from Armenia. An Arminian holds a doctrine the Calvinists dislike."

Lyndon leaned a bit farther over the bar. "You know what 'once saved, always saved' means?"

"I think it means if you're born Baptist you can do whatever you want and still think you're not goin' to h.e.l.l," Ken answered. It was an impression he got from listening to drunks. "Well," Lyndon said, "according to Old Joe, an Arminian is the other side of it."

Officer Johnson looked at Old Joe Jenkins, who was on his back porch in an old rocking chair. The last light faded from the sky along the ridge line. Joe nursed a shot of corn squeezin's his father had put in the cellar. He smoked a hand rolled cigarette made from tobacco raised in a cobbled up green house behind the barn. There was a crate of papers, bought wholesale, in the house. He had offered Lyndon some of each but Lyndon didn't drink or smoke.

"That's it?" Lyndon asked. "That is what all the fuss is about?"

Joe looked at Lyndon and smiled. "If it's already decided, why bother tryin' to change things? If it's a matter of choice, then if things are bad you're obliged to try an' change 'em."

Lyndon didn't think through the implications of Joe's statement. "You know there are a lot of people mighty riled up over this. They're sayin' these people are trouble."

Joe smiled again. "Check the records."

"They're being checked now," Lyndon replied.

"You won't find nothin'."

"If that's the case, why is everybody so upset with them?"

"It's not their theology," Joe replied. "It's their politics."

Lyndon thoughtwhat does theology have to do with politics? Then in short order his mind clicked through the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and Right to Life.Maybe theology does affect politics.

Joe explained. "They want the government to stay out of religion and religion to stay out of government."

"Separation of church and state?"

Joe snorted. "Where did you think the idea came from?"

"The Const.i.tution," Lyndon said. "People went to America for religious freedom."

"Yeah," Joe said. "Freedom to have their own church. But when Roger Williams started preaching free will, he got chased out of Ma.s.sachusetts for heresy and went down to nowhere and started the Rhode Island colony where you could believe anything you wanted and wors.h.i.+p G.o.d any way you pleased. And from there it got into the Const.i.tution."

"You mean we got these Arminians to thank for freedom of religion?"

"Pretty much," Joe said.

Lyndon didn't know whether to believe him or not but decided he'd ask a history teacher first chance he got. * * *

Ken Beasley looked at the young, clean cut police officer in puzzlement for a few seconds. Ken knew the kid and liked him. Lyndon had briefly dated his stepdaughter, Morgan. The boy had been polite. He got her home before the deadline with time to spare. He had treated Morgan well, and her mother with respect. Ken and Lyndon had formed an odd friends.h.i.+p in spite of the difference in age and att.i.tude.

Morgan broke the relations.h.i.+p off when Lyndon wanted her to start going to church with him. Finally, Ken asked, "That's all this is about?"

"Looks like it, Ken." Lyndon stepped back from the bar and back into the voice and demeanor he used when he first entered. "Mister Beasley, they ain't doin' nothin' I can do anything about. Shoot, if everybody was as good at staying out of trouble as these folks, I'd be out of a job.

"I mentioned the noise to Joe. He said he was sorry but didn't think it was overly loud. I'll stop by Sunday and see for myself, but I'm afraid I won't be able to do much about it."

"Why am I not surprised?" Ken let sarcasm drip off the end of every word.

Lyndon started his written report with a one paragraph summation concluding with his recommendation.

"This alleged noise violation is nearly the only complaint to be lodged against anyone on either list of Anabaptists Rev. Green gave me. All other accusations are lodged against the group in general and arise from blatant prejudice. I recommend no action be taken at this time."

February, 1635 "Hey ,Tom. Let me buy ya' a beer," d.i.c.k said when Tom stepped up to the bar.

Tom was chronically short on money. His wife counted his pocket change to keep track of how much he was spending on beer and bad company. d.i.c.k was chronically short on someone to drink with. He rubbed everybody the wrong way.

"Ain't seen much of ya' lately. What's the matter? Won't the little lady let ya' stop for a drink on your way home from work?"

Tom didn't say anything.

d.i.c.k saw a sore spot and pushed. "Hey buddy! What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" The att.i.tude, a malicious condescension, was raw. "The old hen pecked problem, huh?" d.i.c.k was not going to drop it.

Tom needed a reason why he hadn't been in lately. "I don't like drinkin' in a place that lets in krauts."

d.i.c.k smirked, and looked around. "No krauts here."

"Yeah? What about Sunday morning?"

"Shoot, they don't count. They're gone before the bar opens," d.i.c.k said. "Besides, there's krauts andthere's krauts. These are our kind of krauts."

Ken heard it and shook his head. Just yesterday, d.i.c.k was complaining about the krauts using the place to hold church on Sunday morning. Jimmy d.i.c.k would argue either side of anything.

"Don't see it," Tom said.

"Then ya' haven't looked. Open your eyes man! These krauts are red necks."

"How do ya' figure?"

"Well first, how many churches ya' know who'd ever hold services in a bar?" d.i.c.k asked.

"None," Tom said.

"Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Ya' know one. This one, so they ain't your average, run of the mill, goody two shoes. Second, Zane was a good old boy right?" d.i.c.k asked. Zane was a drunken reprobate who wasn't home for the Ring of Fire.

"What's your point?" Tom answered.

"Well, the Baptist church threw him out. They threw these krauts out too. Makes 'em our kind of people."

Tom shook his head. "Don't see it."

"Three," d.i.c.k said. "Half the people in here can't stand somebody else in here. Right?"

"So?"

"So these here krauts can't get along with each other either. Ken didn't offer to let them use the place until they started havin' two services back to back 'cause they couldn't get along. So ya' see, they're our kind of people."

This time Jimmy was half right. Some of the Anabaptists were non-violent, amongst other things. They wanted to hear their own speaker. The other group liked Brother Fiedler's preaching. The building was getting too small for all of them at once so they went to two services. If Ken had known they'd take him up on the offer, he wouldn't have made it. Still, the rent helped.

"Don't see it," Tom said.

"Well, we don't like krauts and the krauts don't like us. Right?"

"And?" Tom asked.

"So the other krauts can't stand these people. I mean Catholics pick on Lutherans and Lutherans don't like Calvinists. But all three of them got it in for Anna Baptists." Tom became half interested in spite of himself. "Yeah? Why's that?"

"'Cause they won't buckle down and go along. They insist on doin' things their own way. Like only baptizin' adults and to h.e.l.l with the consequences. Sounds like red necks to me." d.i.c.k grinned.

"Don't see it." Tom shook his head.

"And I hear tell back in the world, it was these people who got freedom of religion put in the const.i.tution."

"They didn't do it from Germany," Tom answered.

"Well, how about the place bein' cleaner since they started usin' it?" d.i.c.k asked.

They came in the first Sunday and moved the tables and set up the chairs. Before they put the place back together they mopped the floors and wiped down the chairs and the tables.

"So? Ken could hire an American to do it," Tom said.

"Yeah? With what? So many of us are in the army or off somewhere else, business is way off. Shoot, with the rate we're droppin', all of his regulars will be dead shortly anyway. He can't afford to hire more help. Besides they were keeping Ken awake, singing and preaching just over his back fence."

"He could sleep here Sunday nights," Tom suggested.

d.i.c.k grunted. "And not go home to the missus? Not Ken. But then he's not henpecked."

"I ain't henpecked," Tom muttered.

d.i.c.k took out his wallet and put five twenty dollar bills on the bar. "Hundred dollars right here says ya'

are."

"Well, I ain't. Who we goin' get to settle it?" Tom asked.

"Uh uh. If you ain't henpecked, then she'll do what you tell her." Jimmy d.i.c.k pointed at the door. "The day she walks through that door and stays for one hour you win the bet."

"I ain't got a hundred dollars on me."

d.i.c.k sneered. "And you won't have it come pay day. Shoot, you won't have it at twenty a week. h.e.l.l, you won't have it at five a week, 'cause you're a loser. I tell ya' what, I'll put up the hundred against you admitting you're henpecked. Hey, Ken."

"Just a minute, Jimmy d.i.c.k," Ken called back. Ken finished the order he was working on. Since the bartender quit, he'd gone back to doing it all himself. "What do ya' need?"

"Tommy and me got a bet goin'. Can you put this in the box until we settle it?" Ken went down to the cash register and grabbed a lockbox out of the cabinet. When he got back, he opened it and took out a pad of paper. "Okay, what's the bet?"

"I bet Tommy one hundred dollars he's henpecked."

"How ya' gonna settle it?"

"If his wife comes in and stays for an hour any time in the next month, the hundred is his. If she don't, then he answers to henpecked."

"You agree, Tom?" Ken asked.

Tom was caught in a web. "Sure. Why not?" What in h.e.l.l did I just get my self into, he thought. Maybe if I agree to go to church with her? Naw, won't work she won't agree to come in here anyway. Then it clicked.

Tom smiled. "Sure! If she comes through that door and stays for an hour anytime in the next month the money is mine. Give me the pen."

Tom snickered as he signed his initials to the bet slip. "You just lost your hundred dollars, d.i.c.khead."

Then he tipped back his beer and drained it.

All the way home he tried to figure out the best way to get his wife to agree to the plan. He settled on goading her into bugging him to go to church. She did it often enough without his trying. Then he would agree to go if he got to pick the church. When she balked, he'd offer to go with her to her church after she went with him to the church of his choice.