The Brussels Post, 1975-01-01, Page 12A store, a boy, and comfortable isolation
(3Y Harry J... Boyle in the
Imperial Oil Review)
I remember the day before
Christmas and Christmas Eve.
when I was a child better than I do
the actual day,That's probably
beeause1 happened to be raised
in a country general store in
western. Ontario.
One ChristMas Eve my
grandfather's brother Paul
appeared after fifty years'
.absence. Once, just as my mother.
st arted to make up parcels for the
Kelly children, their father came
home from the lumber woods, He
came all the way from Bay City.
Michigan, because, as he said, 'A
man's got to be at home for
Christmas.' There was the year I
had measles and the church choir
stood out in -the snow and sang
Christmas carols before they went
to midnight mass. And, there was
the year father lit' us up with the
new gasoline lamp and changed
everything.
First, let me tell you what it
was like in our country store and
how we anticipated Christmas.
St. Augustine was merely a
corner with a store, church and
school and four houses. We were
seven miles from the CPR in
Auburn in one of those small
valleys that winter kept wrapped
in snow from early November to
April. There were some spindly-
' wheeled cars but these were put
up on blocks at the first sign of
snow to save the tires.
Winter-locked? We certainly
were, but it was a comfortable
isolation. Before the (rucks
stopped running my .father
stocked u p for the siege. Flour,
oatmeal, sugar, bran - all kinds of
bulk goods that wouldn't freeze
filled the war ehousc he had built
on the side of the great old white
L-shaped brick building. The
downstairs front part of the L was
the store. We lived upstairs and
in the back of the L stem. The
wing was the varnished Victorian
'front parlor' with the heater
and the counter top was polished
by daily trade to a sheen. A
banana stalk hung overhead in
summer. Beneath the counter
were great barrels of white and
brown sugar and oatmeal on
casters that rolled. The shelves
held everything from canned
goods to caddies of plug chewing
and smoking tobacCo, Below
these were foldout bins with
ornate, if illegible, lettering.They
held bulk tea, raisins, dates,
currants and glauber salts, a
favorite of farmers reluctant to
call a veterinarian,
The entire place had an
incomparable aroma. Imagine, if
you can, spices, old cheddar
cheese, plug tobacco, seeded
muscat raisins, harness oil, a
bundle of B.C.cedar shingles
someone ordered for patching.
Thcrc was the occasional spill
from a can filled in the warehouse
with raw linseed oil or turpentine.
A coal-oil container always
splashed a bit when it was filled
in the cramped quarters under
the veranda of the tall, gaunt
building - we used a gum drop or
a piece of potato to -plug its
pouring spout. And every time
(he inner door opened one
whiffed the tang of the salt
herring in winter.
Iii summer ,the smells were
more diffuse. In winter when the
stove glowed and customers sat
around with damp clothes
steaming and pipe smoke
wreathing in the heavy air, the
store ,was as odorous as an
oriental bazaar.
The first anticipation of
Christmas came with the arrival
of the special goods ordered the
summer before. Boxes, barrels
and crates were markeddelivcry.
knew that the ones swaddled in
blankets were crates of oranges.
The others, were a mystery and
while it seemed to me that snow
on the ground was justification
enough for opening them, father
was adamant. I poked and p vied
but the wooden pails and boxes
were secure. It was maddening to
read Christmas Mixtuic XXX and
not be able to sec, let alone
sample .
Then on a stormy,
late-November afternoon, fa (her
and mother would begin the
preparations. First the floor was
oiled. I was told firmly to mind my
young brother. The overall
counter was a vantage point until
one year I neglected his
underpinning and we had to have
a special sale on Carhartt's
overalls size 40 and 42 because of
discoloration.
The next step was to string
streamers from the hooks holding
the large coal-oil lamps that hung
over the counters. Fuzzy garlands
of red 'and green, flat tissue
things that unfolded into bells,
thin streamers of sparkling stuff,
a string holding letters that
spelled out 'Merry Christmas'....
all went up but Poi in a day. The
trouble was it never got finished. ,
A customer would come tramping
in out of the blizzard for tobacco
or sugar or tea and father would ,
stop and mother would take my
brother back to• the kitchen. It
might be three or four days before
work was resumed.
!Decorating for Christmas was
finally accomplished but the
goods were set out in dribs and
drabs: It Made me frustrated but,
as I now know ; it was becatise the
place was so crowded, something
had to be moved to make room for
the Christmas, goods. The boxes
and barrels of candy were fitted
protninent enough to be seen
and not too close: for customers to
sample indiscriminately. We sold
jelly beans lozenges with
stioopysayings hi red letters din
sugar sticks with genuine- tin
rings, fat chocolate drops with
violet-colored filling ; mixtures of
bulls' eyes that made your mouth
violet while you sucked them
down to a mysterious yellow seed,
red and black licorice pipes,
whistles, and whips and a few
boxes of chocolates including
ones with dripping centres and
maraschino cherries..
Mother made room on the dry
goods side for boxes of toilet
water, comb and brush sets 'With
ornate handles, silky ladies'
underwear unlike the sturdy
ribbed merino vests and bloomers,
we normally carried, and a few
brilliant pins of shiny stuff with
glittering stones, The fact is that
most customers looked at the
Christmas stuff but they didn't
pay much attention. I tried to find.
ways to call their attention to it,
but they smiled and muttered that
Christmas was a long way off.
It was different with children.
They clutched pennies and stared
and tried to figure out which
purchase gave ' the greatest
variety and amount. Parents were
pestered, and more than one
father gave in by shoving his
penny change back for candy.
Then there would be the great
deliberation. To take a chocolate
covered marshmallow Santa
Claus, a licorice pipe and jelly
beans for the three cent s or else -
and it went on until finally the
parent had to threaten to leave to
hurry up the process, Young men
dawdled around fancy boxes,
pretending to look at something
else. Then there would be a
surreptitious deal - a box would
vanish, put away by my father
with a name on it. These were
usually lads knoWn to be 'going
steady'. It gave me a vicarious
thrill, knoWing that Jean or Mary
would be getting 'Eau de violette'
or a fancy apron from Jack or
Pete, but I was under strictest
orders not to mention a word to
anyone.
As they would say now, 'It all
came together oh Christmas Eve.'
The store was full of customers
doing a kinet`,4 ritual dance in the
pale, yellow !ight of coal-oil
lamps. One paren'tvould herd the
children over to the, church for
confession while the otAtc bought
oranges, nuts and candies- be
hidden in the bags of grocierit,-
A man would Make a sheepish
visit to where my mother was in
dry goods and point to something
which she wrapped quickly and
lie clutched under his overcoat or
mackinaw. Soon afterwards his
wife would appear and, as if by
magic, mother would have a
parcel for her. It was usually a
new suit of woollen long, johns or
fleece-lined combinations or a
'good dress shirt'.
The store was warm. Beyond
the pools of light from the lamps
there were shadowy places where
the ordered gifts could be passed
to the buyer: Sometimes in the
shadows men would even buy
ladies' tradcra,cear as presents for
their wives:They were not too
specific. 'Ate Mrs: Boyle, you
know what my wife would like.'
Braving the regulars who sat
around the stove, young men
made mysterious signals to my
father who could palm a box of
chocolates or a fancy jar of
perfume, powder or toilet water
as dexterously as a thief. Then he
'.wrapped it in his office.
The bell of the t
mark
rang at`
I pain. to mark the end of
confession and mass would start
at midnight, Of course, there
were mote than rtiasssgoera fit the
store,- The United Church people
from Donnybrook Were just as
much a part of the occasion as
anyone: The continuing
Presbyterians did their more-
limited buying early in the week.
There was also a big run. oh tonics
such as tett- Iron and Witte. At
the time I merely thought people
needed more medicine tiVet
the nostrums made them very
popular in a county afflicated by
the Canada Temperance Act,
Everyone seemed talky and
happy,. Normally reticent
neighbors .shook hands without
enibarrassment and wished each
other 'Merry Christmas' as the
clock crept towards twelve. At
ten-tp-twelVe father announced it
as time to go. The Donnybrook
people went home with their
parcels. The mass-goers took
their parcels to stow in. sleighs
and, cutters in the church shed.
At the first troke of the
midnight bell, father turned down
the lamps, checked the stoves and
we walked in the frosty snow to
the church. The big hanging
coal-oil lamps spread soft light on
varnished pews and linoleumed
aisles. There was the fragrance of
green cedar boughs hung around
the altar, the crib and the Stations
of the Cross. Heat poured from
the furnace grate, Joe Bowler, the
'caretaker, fired' up with gr eat,
dry knots of hardwood to a point
where grownups kept shedding
clothes and children fought to
stay awake.
The choir sang hymns and
carols, the candles blazed, the
priest said mass and the'sermon
was short. My memory is of
glowing inner and outer warmth,
the scent of cedar and the
nose-tingling smell of incense as I
shunted in and out of sleep at the
nudging of my mother or father.
My brother slept peacefully
through all.
At home I was sent to bed at
The chilliness of the
skimpily-heated rooms over the
store wakened me. A few
stragglers were helped by father
in the store while mother busied
herself in the 'front room' where
a match •liad been put to the old
heater with the mica windows.
The sleigh and cutter bells
'jing"a-janged' and people hailed
each other as they drove home.
By the time the church darkened,
the chill made me go to bed,
where I determined to stay awake
but' never managed.
I am not suggesting that
Christmas morning was not '
exciting. The stockings, hung
over a rocker in lieu of a fire-place,
were full'. I was assured that
lacking a wide chimney, the front
door had been left open., for Santa
Claus. He unfailingly locked it
after his visit,
Several of my schoolmates told
me Santa Claus didn't exist. Now
it was easy tO see. the nuts,
oranges and candies were the
same as we had in the store, but
how could you account for the *
gray wooden horses and the toy
wagon and rack or the Spinning
top that whistled at high speed. I
knew every inch of the store,
house and warehouse and spent
all the available time-in checking
before Christmas oh any possible
hidden things, without Folding a •
trace. My father never stopped
hid. He simply told hie tuft to pry
open the candy barrels and boxes.
There was only one year he told
me hot to touch two articles, One
was a five gallon can of
soriiething Sam Chittick, the
imperial tank matt, brOtight with
coaloil, grease and paraffin on his
tank sleigh. The old red gasoline
hand pump was not used in
winter because people didn't
drive their cars and anyhow the
deep hill cuts were 'never plowed
free of snow until spring had
dried up the roads.
The second thing not to be
touched was a large carton tucked
behind the pile of flour, sugar and
bean sacks. All I could decipher
on the outside was that, it came
from somebody called Coleman.
Early this particular Christmas
Eve father produced the box and
asked us to sit down in the store
because he had a surprise. He
was like a magician unwrapping a
large white shade and then a
shiny nickel base..W were told to
wait while he filled the nickel
base with what he called high-test
or naphtha gasoline from the
mysterious five-gallon can, He
made a tactical error by saying
how inflammable it was because
mother immediately want ed to go
to the kitchen.
There was a certain amount of
fuss .about a coil arrangement,
putting little silk bags over
twin-hanging spouts and burning
them. They looked „like dried
brown pods. Aft er a few futile
attempts to get what I now knew
be a lamp lighted, he found
customers in the store and
darkness coming on. Mother,
keeping 'a safe dist ance, lit a
coal-oil lamp. Then father re-read ,
the instructions, triumphantly
found a built-in pump in the base
and proceeded to put air in the .
-thing. He held a match to the coil,
turned a valve and flames shot up
in a way that made my mother
drop and break a bottle of strong
toilet water. • 'Mother of God,
Will; get that out of here!"
The pods, turned into white 1 .
bulbs, a radiant white light shone
and the thing hissed.Father put
the shade on, screwed a rod in the
top and hung it from the hook
where the oil lamp had always
been. The oil lamp was like a
candle in comparison. There were
no soft corners and shadows. Our
store was totally bathed in white
light.
It was a great topic of
discussion. The light spread out
in the snow across the road
making the gasoline pump cast a
shadow like that of an odd bird
standing on one leg. Secret
transactions had to be conducted
in the warehouse or the cellar. I
think it terrified my mother. She
acted all night as if she were
waiting for it to explode, unable
to accept that the hisging was not
a signal for an explosion.
That ,night the church was
really an oasis of soft light. We
didn't know it but that was the
last year because gasoline lamps
also hissed there the next year.
My mother grew accustomed to
them, although for several years
the coal-oil lamps were used in
our 'front room' for Christmas
ight, as -her insistence.
. There were two points about
that night, apart from the fact
that it subtly changed Christmas
Eve. It struck me that if my father
could keep a surprise as well as
he did that of the lamp, he might
just have places to put stocking
surprises. Common sense told Me
it was better to forget about it.
That night I watched the
sleighs And cutters swathing
through the starlight that made
the road snow glisten. Getting to
bed I found the shade up and the
starlight so intense I got up to
look out again. The heavens
never seemed to bright. There
was- an enottiletis, band of
northern lights. On impulse I
opened the window, braving the
cold until kearhey's. dootopped
barking, and I listened,
It was there. A hissing noise,
more crackling, than the lamp- but
a hissing just the saine.the stars
(Ccintinued -on Pagt. 16)
which we really only used on
Christmas Day.
The store had everything from
kegs of nails and boxes of bolts to
a small counter with overalls and
smocks. Fleece-lined and pure
wool underwear for men was
piled on shelves on the dry goods
side next to a range of drugs
including Burdock Blood Bitters,
Sloan's Liniment, Epsom Salts,
Zarn Buk Salve and Pink Pills for
Pale People.
Buggy whips still clung to a
revolving rack of the ceiling of
one of the front windows where
white initials, cemented on,
proclaimed the virtues of Salada
Tea.
The other bay window had white
initials 'W,A,Boyle, General
Merchant, St. Augustine'
courtesy of the tea salesman.
Periodically, that window was
decorated with signs and colored
tissue for a product such as soap.
This was the grocery side but it
had the till and the sliding box of
individual books for accontits of
sale and barter of such things as
cream and eggs and poultry.
The,grocery side had a scales, a
glass case for penny candy goods assorted creams, gum drops, holiday. Years later t discovered
tHE BRUSSELS POSt, JAGUAR? 1, i976' t at t high alc folic content of h he 0