This village was called Home because the villagers knew of no
other place outside of that. Everyone there had been born there. Attended
school, got married, had their own children and worked there.
They knew the names of the minister, the mayor, the plumber,
the dress maker, the doctor, even the names of all the cows in the field and
chickens in the barn.
They gossiped about who would marry whom and how many children
they would have.
They knew the names of everyone’s grandfather, grandmother,
aunts and uncles.
So the people of the village called Home were friendly. They were experts on everyone else’s business,
willing to give advice even when it wasn’t asked for.
And most importantly everyone was happy. That is, until, one day a stranger came. The stranger bought the sheep farm just
beyond the edge of the village and would stroll through, followed by his sheep
out to the hilly moors. At the end of the day he would stroll back home to his
farm happy as you like, smiling and waving at all the other villagers, patting
their dogs and children.
After a few weeks, someone noticed they had never seen him at
church. After all everyone wanted to go to church on Sunday, to sing the jolly
hymns and listen to the preacher. This was mainly because, after church, they
all went to the local café for hot chocolate and egg sandwiches. It was THE social
event of the week. They exchanged news, events and argued about the weather and
how much rain could be expected in the next week.
But the stranger never came. So the people knew nothing about
him, not even his name.
Later during the week someone shouted to the stranger “Hey
you! You! What’s your name?” The stranger waved and carried on his way. Soon
other villagers joined in. “Hey you! Who are you? Where do you come from? But
the stranger simply smiled and carried on.
This began to irritate some of the villagers. They were
puzzled and disturbed. “He is not like us”
they would say. “He doesn’t belong here”.
One day an irate farmer called out “Hey you – why don’t you
attend church on a Sunday? You are not welcome to stay in this village if you
are not friendly.”
The stranger walked over to where the farmer stood, followed
by all his sheep, and said “I don’t want
to go to church, but you are welcome, all of you, to come to my farm on
Saturday morning. I will make hot chocolate and egg sandwiches and we can get
to know each other.”
“Well what is your name?” asked the farmer.
“My name is Bartholomew Noklebok Melfuddin and I know that is a difficult name to remember so why don’t you
just call me You-You like you have been.
So the following Saturday morning the whole village walked
over to You-You’s place. They sang songs, told stories, drank hot chocolate and
ate egg sandwiches. They had such a good
time they went every Saturday morning and on Sunday morning they went to church as
they had always done.
Eventually the strangers home became affectionately known as it
the You-You Church.
