The Mulberry Summer

Our paychecks hadn’t come, and we were running out of food.

- Patricia S. Brown

I CHECKED THE PANTRY OF OUR PARSONAGE farmhouse right after I checked the mailbox. Two pieces of bacon, one onion, a few potatoes, a bag of flour, some sugar, a bag of cornmeal, one jar of green beans, powdered milk, a pint of fresh milk, spices, some shortening and bacon drippings. Not much for a family of five. And it could be at least three days before our next summer paychecks arrived.

We needed those paychecks from our old jobs as teachers. Moving to a little town in northwestern Ohio wasn’t my idea. My husband, Jim, had been asked to pastor a struggling church. It was hard to leave our friends and family back home. But we had prayed about it, and we believed that God wanted us to take this assignment even though little besides housing was guaranteed.

Our three children were excited to live on a farm. They planted a garden, though nothing but leaf lettuce sprouted because it was so late in the season. They loved playing outside. I kept them in the front yard as much as possible because of a nasty, messy mulberry tree in the back. The berries had already stained the kids’ clothes.