Free Watching Jimmy by Nancy Hartry Page B

that!”
El-bow
makes as much sense as
A-men
, musically speaking. What does
Amen
mean? Where does it come from? Grandpa would know. That’s exactly the kind of thing he would have been able to tell me, but he’s dead now. The boys might as well be singing “H-um-ber,” a soft-sounding name for the river that winds its way to Lake Ontario.
    Lost in this kind of thinking, I’m startled when the General opens our box and sits down with us. I didn’t know he came to the evening service, too. He nods at Aunt Jean and gives me a wink. He’s rubbing his hands together with excitement. He’s
so
glad I’ve come. He whispers in my ear that a good old friend of his from out west is preaching tonight. That’s why the church is so full, he tells me. There’ll be history in the making tonight, according to the General.
    The General does the “reading” from the Bible. While eyes flash from face to face. He’s memorized his contribution. After he’s finished, there’s much clucking and coughing and rustling of clothes in anticipation of the guest speaker delivering the sermon. I check my sheet.The Right Honourable, the Right Reverend Tommy C. Douglas, Premier of Saskatchewan.
    I’ve never heard of him, but Aunt Jean has. There’s a spot of color in her cheeks and she’s gripping her purse so tightly, you’d think someone was trying to snatch it from her.
    Mr. Douglas grips the side of the lectern and jumps right into his speech about Christianity and war, because as he says, November the 11 th is just around the corner. We’d better not forget.
    “In the Western world we are spending billions of dollars on implements of destruction. I am not a pacifist and I do not think that in a troubled world like ours it is advisable to be defenseless. The fact remains, however, that bombs and guns are not the final answer. I believe that in the long run love is stronger than hate, kindness better than cruelty, and a helping hand more powerful than the clenched fist.”
    Mr. Douglas’s fist is raised in the air and he thumps it hard on the podium. There is a long silence before he continues.
    “I have often wondered what would happen if we were prepared to take 25 percent of what we were spending on armaments and devote it to the task of feeding and clothing the hungry people of the world. If we were prepared to take some of the great food surplus we have or some of our great supplies of farm machinery and electrical generating equipment, and make them available to the people of the underdeveloped countries, I venture the faith that an action of that sort would do more to establish peace and good will in the world than all the bombs and guns we will ever produce.”
    There’s no sound in the church now, and Mr. Douglas takes off his glasses and points at us with them. I feel like he’s speaking to me alone at the kitchen table over a cup of tea and oatmeal cookies.
    “We must constantly ask ourselves why nations go to war. What is it that drives men to attack their neighbors? The whole story of history reveals the fact that when people get hungry they become desperate and they will follow any leader that offers them bread —even if it is their neighbor’s bread. How long do we think we can maintain peace in a world in which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that fifteen hundred million people go to bed hungry every night?”
    People are rustling now. Could there be fifteen hundred million hungry people in the world? I mean
really
hungry not just like me and my mom who have beans and eggs for dinner sometimes when we’re waiting for the next paycheck?
    “One of the greatest presidents of the United States once said that no nation can long survive half slave and half free. I am suggesting tonight that the world cannot long survive half full and half hungry. Peace is only possible where men have learned the principles of co-operative living, and where we are prepared to share with those