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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance Times, 1931-04-16, Page 4THE II wr X jiE(Mh�W11xYMVWFi•I'YWI'"Wv4W`°q�wfd ur ANCI TI1M. ,414 a 1� Awanne-Times. rery ThUreday Morning W. Logan Crain e Publisher Publi,ehed at "fly PHA.Nf - ONTARIO b$cription rates — One year $2.00. Si months $1,00, in .advance, TO U. S. A, $2.50 per year. Advertising rates .)n. application, Wellington Mutual Fire Insurance Co. Established 1840 Risks taken on all class of irrsur- armee et reasonable rates. Head Office, Guelph, Ont, P1'..1=2 CcrglalS. gkggeee, rifle e �� . DODD I. SW Two doors south of Field's . Butcher shop. 'llr'IRE, LIFE, ACCIDENT AND HEALTH INSURANCE AND REAL ESTATE '1P. 0. Box 366 • Phone 46. WINGHAM, ONTARIO J. W. $DSHFIELD Barrister, Solicitor, Notary, Etc. Money to Loan Office --Meyer Block, Wingham Successor to Dudley Holnaes J, H. CRAWFORD Barrister, Solicitor, Notary, Etc. Successor to R. Vanstone Wingham Ontario J. A. MORTON BARRISTER, ETC. Wingham, Ontario -r DR. G. H. ROSS DENTIST Office Over Isard's Store H. W. COLBORNE, M.D. Physician and Surgeon :Medical Representative D. S. C. R. Successor to Dr. W. R. 'Hambly Phone 54 Wingham DR. ROBT. C. REDMOND ' Md R.C.s. (ENG.) L.R.C.P. (Lona.) PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON DR. R. L. STEWART Graduate of University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine; Licentiate of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. Office in Chisholm Block Josephine Street Phone 29 DR. G. W. HOWSON DENTIST Office over John Galbraith's Store. F. A. PARKER OSTEOPATH All Diseases Treated Office adjoining residence a.exs tt Anglican Church on Centre Street. Sundays by appointment. Osteopathy ' Electricity it Phone 272. Hours, 9 a.m. to 8 n.m. d A. R. & F. E. DUVAL s Licensed Drugless Practitioners i Chiropractic and Electro Therapy. Graduates of Canadian. Chiropractic d College, Toronto, and National Col- t lege, Chicago. s Out of town and night calls res- plcnded to. All business confidential. Phone 300. t f J. ALVIN FOX Registered Drugless Practitioner i CHIROPRAeTIC AND DRUGLESS PRACTICE ELECTRO -THERAPY tic Hours: 2-5, 7-8, or by n appointment. Phone 191. s t THOMAS .FELLS AUCTIONEER d REAL ESTATE SOLD A thorough knowledge of Farm Stock " Phone 231, Wingham P RICHARD B. JACKSON 1 AUCTIONEER s Phone 613r6, Wroxeter, or address s R. R. 1, Gorrie. Sales conducted any- t, where, and satisfaction guaranteed. y. DRS. A. J. & A. W. IRWIN DENTISTS Office MacDonald Block, Wingham. ' t b L Y A. J. WALKER FURNITURE ANIS FUNERAL SERVICE os St gi sa ni c he r! • n A. J, Wane* Licensed Funeral Director ani! Embalmer. +Office !;'hone 106.'Res. Phone 224, Latest Limousine Funeral Coach, rm ?iNeexocr�m�F,u�w'e� �•nwreatq � r 1�[ gW1Gi meow, 4 e. 4 tt{; i t •. toy, AT flimeE Maggie Johnson, who father is a letter -carrier,, is the domestic drudge of the humble home where her moth- er does little except bemoan the fact that she has "seen better days" and her sister, Liz, who works in a beauty shop, lies abed late. Maggie has to get the family breakfast before she starts out to her job in the Five -and- Ten -Cent Store. There's: a new boy at the Five -and - Ten, Joe Grant. He tells Maggie lie has been 'assigned to work as her helper in. the stock room. He seems rather dumb, but Maggie helps him through his first day at the store and shares her lunch with him in a : cab- by -hole of a place that belongs to a mattress factory next door to the Fire -and -Ten. NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY "What—with Uncle Tom?" "With Uncle Nobody! It's a sort of—of underworld investigation. I got it on my own hook." "Well, but that's nonsense," the woman said .after a pause, somewhat at, a loss. "Your father won't permit yon for one instant to give up- college and world He—" "My father told ire he wasn't going ;o back, me financially any more," Joe nterrupted' hotly. "Meanwhile, I'm lone with college and I'm working end he can make what he likes of t !" "Why, he'll not endure it one in- stant!"' the woman said. "Meanwhile, aren't you, going to the Russells'? It's. Millicent's coming-out party—she'll ertainly expect you." "`I think I'll let Millicent cry her - elf to sleep, to -night," the boy said azily. "My job has sapped my ener es—what with cologne and post- ards and tinsel and vegetable knives. "What are you talking about!" "Nothing. Nothing. But I'm a working -man now, no time for frivol - III pride, she said, But the Petheridges, and their col- lateral lines of Larkins and Law- rences! Ma told them thrilling tales of Gran'ma Larkins sampler, hating above the Petheridge fireplace in the Magnificent Petheridge home "down South," and about the Johnny Yanks smashing up all Gran'ma Larkin's cut glass, and about the slaves—hundreds of them,, thousands of them, all sing- ing and dancing and happy, and not any more wanting to be. freed than so many irresponsible sparrows, Pop, meanwhile, miserably repres- ented not only the low -born John- sons, but the entire ranks .of the Johnny' Yanks as well. He would cringe while Ma was enlarging upon this 'topic, and nervously clear his. throat. And whenever, he spoke of Vermont families, Ma said with her rich, unctuous laugh, "Makin' wooden nutmegs, I suppose?" and'the girls had to laugh, too. Not that Maggie was not loyal to her father; she had no heart in the laughter Ma so often directed against him. But it was simpler all round to laugh. • No use going against that particu- lar current, there were too many oth- ers to struggle with, if one were to struggle at all! Often, when Maggie and her father .were alone he would give her a fairer idea of the case. "You see, dearie," Len would ex- plain in his mild, uncomplaining voice "Ma's just quotin' things she heard when she was a `little girl, She never saw your great-grandmother's house, with those samplers and things. Your mother can't remember nothing about slaves and all that. I don't' know as her folks ever had slaves, anyway. They lived right in East St. Louis, and they had a drug store—I don't know what they would have done with slaves!" Sometimes, Pa would ramble on to 11 rt a � 0�"�°!� "Pop, do you think there's any hope I'm not a lady? . I'' to have my kitchen always clean," ies. Leave ane be, Mother. I'm ead." There was a silence, The woman at puzzled and disapproving, think- ng. "Listen, Joe. You do like Millicent, on't you? She's such a: dear little ping," his mother presently began, , entimentaily, "and she likes you so much!" "Give her my love and tell her I'm tying to get together enough money or our little nest," said Joe. "I'll see er at the club tomorrow, anyway- he always plays golf Sunday morn rags„ "I don't understand you, Joe," his Tr • said in cold disapproval. "You ent out of the house yesterday mor - ng wild because yoer father had aid he'd take you out of:college if his spending of money went on, Now you say you've got a job and on't want to go!" "I'm reformed!" Joe said jocosely. The old man called me names l' this morning. It's just possible—it's just ossible that some day I']! have the la • on the.old man!" "I wish you'd stop talking nonsen e, and follow me over to the Rus ells'," his'mother said 'impatiently. I don't know what they'll think if ou don't come." "Tell then: I've had a change of Bart—I've got religion," Joe said in- efferently: "Tell them that the way o begin living the'ideal life is to egin." "To begin what?" sharply asked iilian Spencer Merrill, wife of the caner of the Mack Merrill Chain ores. "Just. that, darling. The way to be- living- the the ideal life is—to begin," id Joseph Grant Mackenzie Merrill iidly. Mrs. Johnson, born Petheridge, g, herislied in herself, and planted in* ✓ daughters, an unbounded sense of ghteous pride. The Johnsons had o pride, and no particular cause for j love the other side of the ancestral pic- ture, to his own boyhood on a Ver- mont farm. "I surely would like you to see the place, some day, Maggie. There was eight of us boys, and my sister Mar- garet—you're named for her, and for my mother, too, There's some of them there still, I daresay -I haven't heard for twenty years. You'd like your grandmothers' kitchen—winter. or summer, that was the place us boys liked to bel I remember when a big storm would be comin' up— trees bendin' over, and planks rattlin' in the yard, and the old well -sweep. creakin'—how we loved the kitchen thenl There was a big open fireplace one side, but she had her range built right across it, and there wasn't nev- er a drop of anything spilled on that range—she kept it like black glass." "Oh, Pop! But why did you ever come away?" "1 d'no, Maggie. Jest got restless, I guess." , "Look here, Pop. If my grand- mother Johnson had nine children an' no servants, how could she manage to keep the place so clean, and the stove shining so, and everything? Ma says that no lady ought ever to do her own, work, and she says it can't be done!„ "Well, maybe your grandmother Johnson wasn't a lady, Maggie.", "Pop, do you think there's any hope I'm not a lady? Not like my grandmother Petheridge,_I mean? Be- cause," Maggie would rush on eager- ly, "I'd love to have my kitchen al- ways clean and orderly, and pies cool- ing on the windowsill, and jam all put tap, and me in a nice clean ging- ham dress --and a big still white ap- ron, sitting down on the side porch,. rocking like you said Gretn'ma John- son always did! And I'd like to be- lieve in nil those newspaper budgets, and systems, and having a regular hour for everything," Maggie would conclude, expectant eyes on his fate. 15 "Well -1 don't know, dearie, Your mother hasn't real good health, you. know. And your sister has to keep her hands nice." "And then, of course, we're poor folks, Maggie, When you, have to"do without, things-" "Pop, we're not poor: Why, you. and I --make niore than two hundred a month, Pa. And there's budgets as low as one hundred!" "Two hundred a month for four folks ain't much in these days, --4fag gie, when everything's gone up so high!" It was the automatic protest. "But, Pop—those budgets, and the lists the government sends out, and the newspapers and magazines know how things have gone up, don't they? "Dearie, your Pop ain't much on mathematics," Len would say, passing a weary, hand over his. troubled fore- 1 head, shaking, his meek, grey little head. Ma, approached on the subject of household reform, had much to say. and very, very little to do. "When 1 and your pop was mar- ried beef was fifteen cents a pound! I remember that, because I said to the butcher, `Ain't that a lot?' I was- n't nothin' but an innocent child -I'd never done any work with my own hands before. 'Keep them little hands like flowers!' our old dotcor, Dr. Lovejoy, use' to say. He was :a Southerner, too—" Maggie only listened respectfully, feeling that if beef would only go down to fifteen cents a pound again, everything might yet be well. Mean- while, the kitchen grew, shabbier and shabbier, and water and grease and. ashes "darkened the chipped floor, and the plates were piled in the sink, and the faucets, dripped on them unavail- ingly. Shehadfound room for the ideal leaflet that Joe had given her on the crowded shelf above the sink, and sometimes she looked up from the dishpan at it, . with wondering eyes. "The way to begin living the ideal life is—to begin." Her mother said that it didn't seem to her to make sense. 'Lizabeth read it once, suspiciously, and then forgot all about it. But. Len and Maggie dis- cussed it more than once, in some be- wilderment. Len said frankly that he didn't "get it." There was no hot water, and no- body in the world could wash the plates after a lamb stew dinner in cold. She piled them and scraped them while she waited for some wat- er to boil. "Maggie!" This was her mother, from bed. "Liz go out?" "Ten minutes ago, Ma." "Well,' here's all there is to it," said 'Mrs. Johnson. "I'm' at the end of my green, and . I can't do no more leaves until I get some. I guess you are tired, ain't you?". "Not so very." "You'll have to get the money from your father, Maggie!". "Pop, have you thirty cents?" "I guess so." He counted it out -- dimes, ut-dimes,` pennies. "Will two be enough, Ma? "How much did your father give you? , Thirty cents -yes, that'll be enough, but I: would like to know what Len Johnson does with his mon- ey! Shut that door!" Dishes waiting, kettle so slow to heat, crumbs on the floor, batter spill- ed and dried on the stove, the red table -cloth rumpled, the sugar bowl upset, dish towels stiff with grease and water—no matter, the inspiration of it went before her like a banner, as she ran down the dark street. "The way to begin living the ideal life is—to begin." ' "Joe," Maggie asked, a day or two later, "how could youlive the ideal life if nothin' in your life was ideel?" "Alt, there's the catch!" Joe answ- ered airily. 'The meaning of that ideal life thing, is this: You're -you're all in your own mind, do you see? What you have doesn't matter. What you think and what you are is everything —and what bunk it all is!" he added sneeringly to himself. "Do you get me?" he asked aloud. She did not get him at all, but she nodded. "You must make everything beauti- ful in your life," Jae said, encouraged by her attention. "An old plate, for instance, an old stain on the wall. Why, Maggie, the museums of Eur rope are full of them—old plates and ragged clothes and worn-out rags and water stains, and everyone -thinks they're beautiful! The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, kr instance. Did you ever hear of that?" 4 Archti! n gelo did rt,, Maggie said, . nodding. ":"incl how did go lett,,a�a* alt "t)h, we had it in $eh<tol, ,tat' then ate have 'etil here, minutia the fifteen - cent classic coloured ; reproductions," Maggie replied. 'Well. ,All those old pictures are dirty and worn, ittc>atldering away — all the old palaces are, lots of tiie books, all the furnittrrey--and yet per. stns swarm there every year and ad- mire 'them," said foe. ':Now, the point .15, suppose you had to live with a lot of rotting furniture, and chipp- ed plates, and you just said to your- self: 'These are beautiful and valu- able relics--" "You mean that cups an' chairs ars' being poor an' tired really have no - thin' to do with the way you lave?" She asked, coming nearer to it than he had:, as he recognized somewhat to his surprise. "You've got it," he said. There was vision in her uplifted eyes, as if the walls of the mattress factory, where they were sitting, had faded away, and new dreams of beau- ty and ,fitness and purity had risen before her inner sight. Thursday, April 16th, 1931 about?'" he asked blankly.. Merrill,''' she answered readily, "Macke izie was the brains, they say ---h4 was the "Mack' ---but he's dead, But Aferriil is the soul of honor,. and he not only hes the faculty of drew - in' good :men about hint, but lie, hes made a small fortune out of the Mack —took eare of most af•her family, an' has kepi several of her relatives out of jail for what they dope Profiteer- ing in war -tithe as well!" Joe was staring at bier, oddly, a slow smile on his face, "Who taught you that piece'?" the prickling, uncomfortable emotion it aroused, was not vexation, but something P dee er—soniething nearer "Ev'ryone knows that" "I's—that—so?" He grinned, Bela', tives of his mother kept out of jail, eh? That was probably Uncle Irv- ing and young Irv. He looked at her, musing in his turn. `•`I'd like to walk Maggie in on the old man some day ---or better yet, walk him into the store and introduce Maggie as the fine, independent girl he's always talking about," Joe 1" 71 tell '_` 0- "Tow n family!" what, Jam' I like you better than anyone else except my y "Joe, nothing could stop that if you once got it!" she said in a whisper And then, half to herself, "I can't wait to get home and begin!" And after a while she said wistfully: "Joe, I wish I knew as much as you know:" "A lot of it's bluff," he said care- lessly. But he liked her blind admira- tion, nevertheless. "Does your mother work?"-" she asked him one day. "My--?" He started, considered. "Not now," he said. "She split a Board the other day," he said, after thought. Maggie saw nothing unnatural in i this. She visualized .a sturdy, bare 1r headed old woman helping with the I family supply of kindling. �ison'What does your father do, Joe?" "The only real work Dad does now a_ f golf course at a country club," Joe.answered scrupulously. "A gardener?" she asked, widening her eyes. "A caretaker?" It was a shame to tease her, but then she was such a simple little dumbbell, Joereflected. Grimy little face, grimy little hands, mud -colour- ed apron, and boots a size too big. Maggie was talking. ".. , , but she was quite a swell: She didn'± have much money, mind ju, but he did. Mackenzie was in the business then, an' they say he named his son for him?' There was a familiar ring about these •facts; could she .possibly be talking of her employer and of his father? "What on earth are you talking fleeted. "I'd say, 'You keep suggest- ing that I . get out spniewhere and meet a real girl—well, she's real, Maggie. And she's going to step right off the floor of the Mack into the position of your only daughter- in-law!'" aughter-in-law!,,, "I might bluff it, anyway," his thoughts ran on. "Maggie's such a little sport, she'd. enjoy playing the part. She'd make up for it and carry it off like a comedienne!" But he couldn'tla games with P Y Maggie. The poor kid was falling in love with him fast enough as it was. "It's probably her first crush," Joe thought, watching her not without a sort of generous pity. "She'll have it bad. But it won't hurt her, it nev- er hurts anyone?' She was far enough from any ap- preciation now, at all events, as she chattered on of everything she found interesting, sometimes making him laugh, sometimes-oddly—giving him a prick behind the eyes that owed itself to a very different sensation. Maggie had ad never:'thought of love, for herself.' Her own affairs, indeed, were en- tirely secondary. But she betrayed herself to Joe at almost every word and glance. "I'll tell you what, Joe,. I like you better than anyone else except my own fam'ly!" "Don't like me as well as your sis- ter, huh?" "Well, I like some things about you as well as I like anything about. Liz," she might finally decide. The .little figure dropped, against a, length of drab -painted brick wall, the small, hard. -worm hands were elapsed; in one of iter rmnidle iiess, :hand her absently areame "staringtsof eyen worn untiseal expression Qf r - row andan doubt. Joe's !tecta pricksoed hien. "I hope you're not beginning -some- thing that you can't finish, Maggie!'". he said to himself more than once. One day he brought her a long~'ems velope, which, upon opening it in :an expectant flutter, Maggie found full; of printed "G's" large and small, cut from magazines and newspapers, "Oh, Joe, it's awful .cute the way you learn me!" she said, her betray`,,- ing eyes luminous, • her whole being' melting toward him visibly, irresist- ibly, And she presently reported that her mother and sister had made dry, half -contemptuous reference to the fact that she did not drop the tibia quitous final consonant any more, She told him that he had brought her all luck. t was the day you first"—she paused—"first cane," she resumed briskly, deciding upon her verb, "that I got on to the ideel idea, And them 'member that you gave me one that night, going home? Well. I put it up by the clock, and we we just about lived by that card. It's made a diff- erence in Pa, an it's made a differ- ence in me, an' in everything." "I see a difference in you," he said. seriously. "Oh, Joe, honest—do you?" "Honest, I do:" "How?" "Well, in everything. The way you• talk, the way you look, the way you. act," he said. "Oh, I wisht—" she said elatedly "I wisht you could see the difference. in our kitchen! Pop an' I ask each other every night, 'Is it ideel?' And we won't. go to bed unless it is!" It soothed him to have her so op- enly, so completely adoring. She thought him brilliant, she. thought him well educated, she thought him wise and witty and lov- able, whenhis own failed him.' And her laughter! The divine, the inimetablegift of mirth had been giv- en her—Joe first . thought :Maggie" pretty when he first saw her laugh. She lived in a delicious gale of it. That little soft touch on his coat,, that little soft girl -person jumbled! againsthis shoulder ou for a minute, gr in the crowded aisle, those black -fringed eyes brimming with mirth and affec- tion—those were all darned agreeable - things, his thoughts would agree. A hundred times, a thousand times„ he heard her call herself lucky. With her usual eager rush she re- tailed a hundred reasons. Her health,. her wonderful family, her mother - described as "genteel," her dashing sister, who had such a good job, and her, father: without whose assistance- Maggie's yearning toward the "ideal•.' life" would have been crushed in the bud, and whose companionship meant everything to the washer of the John- son dishesand the keeper of the Johnson kitchen. "But you had hard luck, Joe," she agreed pityingly; This vexed him too. Or perhaps• compunction. Of course he had had' a rotten deal. But for Maggie to be• the one to see iti "How d'ye mean I've had hard'luck?,, "Oh, well, every way! You weren't (Continued on Page Eleven) THE VICE -REGAL FAMILY efore'they stopped ashore frons theCanadian Pacific ED liner Duchess of Bedford at Halifax, on Saturday April 4 h , .. t ,Their Excellencies and their ,.hrldren posed for their first Canadian photograph. Shown above as they 'waited in the Wilting Room of the !Duchess of Bedford for the Prime Minister to reet them, tbe party from left to right as: Lady IvLoyta Ponsonby, The Earl of Bessborougii, the Countess of Bessborough and Viscount Duneannon. • Fellow passengers on the liner said the Vice -regal party took part very democratically in the ordinary shipboard life, Ilia Excellency presidingat the c -err. in aid of Seamen's Charities and Viscont Dun anon antheir pars on his 8 theear old progranime fail elocutionist and piaaist, respectively. :6;w