Excerpts From...

 

     

The minister held the wiggling child over the baptismal font. John could tell the man was accustomed to baptizing tiny infants. Their youngest, whom the minister was now wrestling, was six months old and putting up a fight. As the water droplets landed on the little boy’s scalp, he produced a startled cry and then more squirming. In a calm, steady voice, the minister continued. “…Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I baptize you, Arthur Theodore Johnson…”

    Another time, John might have laughed at their child’s antics; not today. As soon as John felt it was proper, he reached out and took the baby from the minister’s hands. He carried the child…. Arthur…. and went to stand by Ida, whose red, swollen eyes stared unblinking at the swirling water in the font.

    John was worried about Ida. He wasn’t sure this baptism would help, but Ida was so insistent last night, in a brief lucid moment, that he agreed to give Arthur’s name to the baby in a desperate effort to ease his wife’s anguish.

 

 ***********************************

 

    John watched the March sunset even as the memories of his father slipped to the back of his mind. He shrugged and looked at his son.

    “Just thinking…” He reached for the matchbox he’d placed in his vest pocket, turning it over in his hand as he thought. “Did I ever tell you about safety matches?”

    Emil shook his head.

    “Hmmm." He continued. "Anyway, when I was a boy, every safety match, AND the boxes they came in," John tapped the box on his knee, "were made thirty miles north of my home in a town called Jönköping.”

    Emil leaned forward. “No, you haven’t told me about that. The Swedes invented matches?”

    “Not matches, no, but they DID invent safety matches. I can’t look at a matchbox without thinking of home,” He said, pushing the little drawer open with his thumb.

    “The man who invented them saw a need and solved the problem. People were dying because the matches of the time could light accidentally, with the slightest friction. Those matches started lots of fi—” John stopped himself midsentence, changed course, and then took up the story once more.

    “Many match factory workers became disfigured because of the poisonous white phosphorus in those matches. Lots of young women who worked in the factories…” John shook his head, “disfigured or dead after a few years.” John slid the little drawer of the matchbox open to reveal a neat row of red matchheads inside.... 

 

***********************************

 

    “Emil said there was a murder.”

    “They never did solve that mystery. It happened way before you boys were born in 1878. I believe it was late fall. I remember how cold it was at the time. It was the same year I bought my first piece of land. The one on section 30.” John clarified.

    He closed the newspaper and sat back in his chair, relishing the opportunity of getting to tell his boys a story.

    “If I recall… he was the first Lundberg to own that land, and he left a wife and seven children in the sad event. It’s the reason I tell you boys never to travel alone, especially when returning from market with money in your pocket.”

    “So, what happened?” Arthur asked impatiently.

    “Lundberg…, Charles had gone up to Salina to deliver a load of wheat. It was late in November and dark early, so he had spent the night and drove back the next day.” John reached for his pipe and tobacco and began stuffing it.

    “Anyway, according to what he told the sheriff, he started for home the next morning with a wagon load of supplies and money from the sale. Thirty years ago, the roads weren’t as good as they are now; more like a wide path. They wound around the hills and crossed rivers at the shallowest part. No bridges. It would have taken him a good part of the day to make the trip home.”

    “So, it happened near home.” Arthur leaned in a little, letting the baseball roll across the table toward his brother.

    Emil picked it up and tossed it back to Arthur. “Let him finish.”

    John continued. “By dusk, Lundberg was passing the old Mt. Hope schoolhouse, and soon after...,