Mr Robertson arrived at the end of June and pronounced the greens playable. “You’ve done well here,” he said to Father Urban, “but don’t get careless. I see signs of night-crawlers and pocket gophers.”
By the middle of July, the course was more than fulfilling its threefold purpose: to serve the laity, to serve the secular clergy, and to serve the Order. To the Hill had come a number of those better types who had never made a retreat before and whose support — and not just material support — was required if the place was to succeed as a spiritual powerhouse or oasis (Father Urban used both terms), although the less desirable types were still in the majority. To the Hill, too, had come the diocesan clergy for their annual retreat, which, due to a cancellation, was preached by Father Urban, and this convention was really paying off. Pastors who had once been backward were now sending their parishioners to the Hill and saying that the Clementines were trained to do the job they were doing. In his conferences, Father Urban often referred to parish priests as “those heroic family doctors of the soul” and to himself as “this poor specialist.”
And then, working through Monsignor Renton, Father Urban got the Bishop to come out to the Hill for a meal — and should have left it at that. Urged by Father Urban and Monsignor Renton, the Bishop, who said he’d played before, took to the course. After four holes, on each of which he’d clearly demonstrated that he was a poor sport as well as a lousy golfer, the Bishop quit in a huff. Father Urban was unhappy about this — happy, though, that it was over, for the contrast between his play and the Bishop’s was excruciating. Moreover, the Bishop appeared to regard Father Urban’s near-professional game as unseemly and impertinent in a priest. There were people like that, Father Urban knew, and he was only sorry that the Bishop had to be one of them. He invited the man to come out again, and soon—“All you need, Your Excellency, is practice”—but was rather glad to hear that the sorehead was off for Rome.
Otherwise, Father Urban hadn’t made any mistakes — if, indeed, it was a mistake to extend to the bishop of a diocese the hospitality enjoyed by others.
Mistakes had been made, though. The gates had been opened too wide in the spring when Wilf, hoping to cut costs and perhaps realize a profit on the fund set aside for the course, had accepted outside help. The bad effects of this were still to be seen — all kinds of people playing the course who might or might not have helped enough or at all. Low-level patronage had proved to be more bother than it was worth. Why, there were people who’d bring you fifty feet of leaky hose and act as if they owned the course!
Just about all the trouble and confusion at the Hill that summer could be traced to Wilf, and not only where the course was concerned. Saying they had to meet competition elsewhere, and fancying he had a special way with married couples (“Now my brother Rudy and his wife”), Wilf had scheduled and preached two family retreats, which he called “sweethearts’ retreats,” and, ill attended though they were, there just wasn’t enough space for that sort of thing at the Hill. Talk about Pandora’s box! Minor, where the sweethearts, when they weren’t wandering around in the corridors, were holed up in single rooms (“One of the features of these beds is you can stack one on top of another, like bunk beds”), had reminded Father Urban of a Pullman car in an old Follies skit.
In general, though, life became easier and more meaningful that summer at the Hill. The place was actually under new management, but Father Urban let the credit go to Wilf, as rector, and to the brochure, of which there was to be a second edition, with an aerial view of the course and a close-up of the new shrine of Our Lady below No. 5 green. “Yes, we’ve seen a few changes here” was about all Father Urban would ever say in acknowledgment of his achievements.
Father Urban was being used sparingly as a retreatmaster at the Hill, since Wilf and Jack had to be doing something. In fact, Father Urban had preached only one retreat from beginning to end — the one for the diocesan clergy — and that one because Wilf must have recognized that only the best would do. Wilf didn’t say this, of course. No, even though he arranged it so that Father Urban gave a conference to every group that passed through the Hill, Wilf always acted as though this were only a matter of giving retreatants a little variety. “I think they’d like to hear you,” he’d say. Father Urban noticed, though, that Wilf always asked Jack, or one of the visitors vacationing from the Novitiate, to give the next conference: Wilf, although he wanted retreatants to have the best, a little taste of it anyway, didn’t care to follow Father Urban.
The Clementines were still serving the parishes where they traditionally helped out on weekends (except St Monica’s, where Father Udovic was doing without them), Wilf making good use of visitors for this purpose, but Father Urban was left with a certain amount of time on his hands. (He was limiting himself to eighteen holes a day.) And so, with Wilf’s permission, and with Sylvia Bean’s little Barracuda, though he sometimes traveled by rail, Father Urban became the Hill’s roving ambassador of good will.
He made calls in Olympe, Great Plains, Brainerd, St Cloud, Duluth, and the Twin Cities, and once he went as far south as Rochester. The usual thing was to drop in on executives at their places of business, but to let them know right away that he didn’t want anything, and if nothing developed, he’d soon be on his way. “Just wanted you to know where we are. Drop in on us sometime.” Later, if he ran into somebody he’d met in this fashion, it was like old times. Hello—hello! He watched the paper for important funerals, too, and turned up at some of these. Wherever he went, people always seemed glad to see him — and, of course, it was all for the Order.
In St Paul, he dropped in on the president of the Minnesota Central. “I’m just between trains, and thought I’d come in and thank you for those two passes — and let you know we’re not misusing them.”
“Don’t need any more, do you?”
“Well, there are three of us.”
“What’s your name, Father?”
Father Urban told him again, and this time the man wrote it down.
“Not from around here, are you?”
“As much from around here as anywhere else. For many years, I traveled out of Chicago, but I consider Minnesota my home now — and consider myself fortunate.”
“Well, that’s fine.”
“Now I know you’re a Catholic, and we do have this retreat-house, and, of course, we’d love to see you up there, but I’m not trying to sell you on that. I know you’re a busy man. But why not drop in on us sometime, if you’re up that way? Play a round of golf, if you like.”
“Say, I’ve heard about that. Before I forget, should I address the pass to you?”