HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-12-21, Page 25This shall be a sign
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THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1988. PAGE 25.
bar on the rails. Since that none of
us struck him.
Once hesaw Frank McCauldy
beating a wife with an axe handle.
Marjan caught him by the neck and
shook him till we thought he was
dead but none of us went to strike
Marjan.
The rest of us .. we talked much
but we were not strong. We did not
work very often and we did not have
much to eat. We make liquor but
thereis hardlyalivingtohome
made liquor now. We were not
really a community and we would
take all our children away often but
always we would drift back again as
if it was more like home to be near
the water hole that we had always
been near and where we knew the
path to the firewood in the brush.
We had no homes but we lived in
the abandoned mine-camp shacks
that leaked. When we went away to
find a better field something drew
Continued on page 26
Joel Jenkins
The above illustration ”
appeared with Mr. Sloman’s
Christmas story in the
December, 1932,
“Canadian Magazine.”
The following short story was
written by Fred Sloman, who
taught at the Blyth Continua
tion School in the early 1920’s
before going on to become more
famous as the teacher on CNR
School-on-Wheels 15089,
which was brought to life again
this past summer as the subject
of David S. Craig's play ‘ Fires
in the Night” at the Blyth
Festival theatre. ' This shall be
a sign ’' originally appeared in
the December, 1932, edition of
‘ ‘the Canadian Magazine, ’' a
national magazine which has
long since disappeared.
there he learned to write. There too
they explained to him what
Bishops mean by their words and
what the Premier means and what
the Red Communist means when
he speaks.
We hated Marjan. We called
him “the Pollack’’. It was because
he worked too steadily and because
he built his shack too straight, and
because he washed things.
He made his shack very straight,
and he even washed the cloth he
had hung like curtains at his
window.
Our children loved him. It was
because he brought them oranges
each rime he went twenty-two
miles to the store. And because he
had bought a gramophone for
fifteen dollars and showed the very
little children how to swing and
sing with the music.
We were poor and had no
gramophones. We asked always
for government relief. We had no
work, for such Pollacks took our
jobs.
And in our house our children
scratched each other and swore
likemenandsleptallinone torn
bed.
Even the boy that Marjan
slapped loved him.
He slapped him hard when he
found him hurting a little girl. Then
our big Joe Vosen walked over and
struck the foreign man in the face
but found that Marjan had muscle
like steel cords. It was from
working every day with a pick and a
May every heart and home
be rich in the radiance of
Christmas joy. To you, our
dear friends, many thanks.
Frank & Kathy
Frank Workman Electric
This is a story of a child who slept
on some hay ... in one of those
boxes that farmers call a manger.
Had it not been for Marjan
Wolothkyro there would have been
no hay and the child would have
died in the snow. He made us buy
the community cow.
It was in Canada but Marjan is
not Canadian. He came from a back
corner of Europe and he must
remain with us at least five years
before he can be numbered with us
who were born free. I have not
spelled his name correctly but it is
as near as I can put it down in
English from the odd characters he
wrote.
Canada was rather glad to have
him for he landed just when the
black flies were at the worst and the
regular workmen had got on a
freight and had left their pick and
crow bar idle. They said no white
man should work in such a place.
The black flies made blood
course down Marjan’s face and
neck and wrists. The heat, thrown
back from the rocks, congealed the
blood.
But Marjan said he liked it here.
He said itwasfree. And when afew
months later the frost on rocks and
rails burned one like fire he still
held his job. It was in those bitter
winter days that he went to a
MacDougall school-on-wheels and
CHRISTMAS
GREETINGS
FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOURS.'
M -.'S*
i
Blu-mers
Christmas
Hours:
SHERRIE
Dressing
Room Only
Dec. 21, 23 Open ‘til 9 p.m.
Dec. 22 Men’s Night, Open ‘til 10
WATCH FOR PRE-JANUARY SALES
Re-opening Dec. 29,30,31 reg. hours
Hoping your holicJoy
be obundont in oil
good things!
J. & H. Campbell
Transport Ltd.
BLYTH 523-4204