A good minister learns to be 'wikid'

Before relating the bold adventures of the Rev. Dr. Willard Heimbeck on his spectacular vacation on Maine's Down East coast, I must dwell a bit on the way folks talk down that way.

A present example is the word "good," which is declined variously and serves curiously. It is inflected as almost two words, goo-ood, and is usually supported by the descriptive addition, "some old." That is, a piece of lemon pie will be "some old goo-ood."

When Lobsterman Harold comes in for a mug-up, he will eat a piece of pie and he will say, "By gracious, Nelly, that pie is sure some old goo-ood."

And Nelly, pleased, will ask, "Could you stand another piece?"

At this, to indicate he is replete, Harold will say, "No, I'm goo-ood." His morality is not in context.

Sometimes the word "wikid" is inserted to emphasize things, and you will say, "some wikid old goo-od." That is very goo-ood indeed. A variation might be, "The finest kind!"

Now that all that is squared away, let us return to the Rev. Dr. Heimbeck.

He was a respected Protestant clergyman of the Presbyterian persuasion, who occupied a settled pulpit at Leavenworth, Kan., and he knew nothing whatever about the state of Maine. He would not have known what it was if a lobster surfaced in his silver communion chalice. He had no notion of the sea's extent or the boundless bounding of the tide.

But among the mail that came to his desk, he found an invitation that interested him. It offered a free vacation on the far-down Maine coast to a clergyman who would preach on Sundays and would make parochial calls in a small Maine community out to sea. Loud's Island, to be precise.

Idly, Dr. Heimbeck responded, and as summer burst down-east, he and his family arrived by boat from Round Pond to be the visiting vacation occupants of the parsonage, or what is know as "supply."

The church on Loud's Island is one of several that are supplied each summer by the Maine Seacoast Mission, a foundation dedicated to the spiritual and social needs of the lonely folks who live on the offshore islands and peninsulas of the granite fringe of coastal Maine.

The mission has a boat that plies the long, indented area. The boat is some hundred feet long, well supplied and always ready for any need, and she is happily named the Sunbeam, but is called "God's Tugboat." This is not at all flippant, for Down East people know the tugboat is the workhorse of the fleet, and the one thing you can depend on.

The evening the Heimbecks arrived on Loud's Island, a heavy fog settled in, and, although they were standing on the front steps, they couldn't see the knob to open the door.

This was not a pleasant summer fog, drifting in to refresh the night and the kind to burn off with the rising sun. This was thick as burgoo, and it settled down to drip off the spruce trees.

This was a down-Maine keeper, good for at least a week and maybe right through August. The kind that would keep the lobstermen ashore so they couldn't haul traps, and make them sit all day in the bait house by Prior's cove, surly and sulking, with nothing to do until the weather scales off.

From the Monday of their arrival through Saturday, the Heimbecks had been 30 feet from the Atlantic Ocean and hadn't seen it. This was certainly an odd sort of seaside vacation! However, The Rev. Dr. Heimbeck had used the invisible time to advantage, and he had sat with the fishermen in the bait house listening to their conversations.

In short, Mister Heimbeck learned to talk Down East.

The Sunday sunrise was magnificent. On Sundays it is illegal to fish lobsters, so this meant a full and happy church, and the visiting minister girded for his initial effort. He watched the early light creep up the eastern sky and adorn the morning.

The great orb of the orient sun burst from the vast waters and dripped red globs back into the endless tide. There was nothing, nothing at all, except ocean, all the way to Spain, and it lay there in the seeming tranquility of creation, all his and his alone! Nobody, he felt, had ever seen this before!

He stood by the open window of the parsonage bedroom, overcome by the magnificent beauty of the Maine morning sea, and he felt alone with the Creator in a hushed moment of infinite peace.

He stood there in awe, entranced by his own fearful reverence for the wonders of the Great Beginning. He knew not how long he stood thus and was surprised to realize that the morning was advanced, the church was filled for the services, and it was time for him to take the pulpit.

Still overwhelmed by the splendor that shone round about and filled the universe with unspeakable joy, he stepped through the door into the church and lifted his arms in pious supplication.

The Rev. Willard Heimbeck of Leavenworth, Kan., spoke with respectful devotion to his flock Down East: "And God saw that it was sure some old goo-ood, and He was wikid pleased!"