Village Squire, 1973-06, Page 16the day
IOoAey
grew
In
Homeslead
A short story
by Ronald Kirby
Little Homestead hadn't seen so much excitment since the
celebrations on V -E day. In fact, some of the old-timers said,
it was only surpassed by the time Will Stimers had run breath-
lessly into town shouting that he had found gold in his apple
orchard. That had been more than 50 years earlier and the old
timers were later to state categorically as they sat in the shade
of the old elm in the little park near the post office, it was
just as anti -climatic.
It began in the morning, when Kelly McGintee swaggered
importantly into Margaret's restaurant just as the little group
of main street businessmen were sitting down for their
morning coffee break and gab -fest.
Mac MacKenzie was the first to notice the important smirk
on Kelly's face. Kelly wasn't an accepted member of the
little club that gathered at Margaret's. Besides being charged
to uphold the by-laws set forth by Homestead's illustrious town
council, which meant writing tickets for all the businessmen's
cars that sat in the one hour parking slots along main street
from 8:30 in the morning until six at night, he was one of only
two Irish Catholics in a Scotch Presbyterian town.
"Well Kelly, what's up this time," Mac asked sarcastically.
"Did yuh get to put a ticket on the mayor's car again?"
The group exploded momentarily into suppressed laughter
and school -boyish giggles. Kelly was a favourite target of
Mac's humour.
"fellas," Kelly said, the laughter in no way squashing the
importance he felt as he relayed the news, "I think we're in
for a little excitment."
You couldn't say the prediction through the room into utter
confusion. About the most noticeable reaction was a little
twitch in Jimmy Maclntyre's moustache as he bit into his
bran muffin. Kelly was noted for overemphasizing the impor-
tance of everything connected with his job. Finally Mac
MacKenzie looked up from the morning newspaper and, after
a pause of sufficient length to let Kelly know that the gather-
ing didn't really care one way or the other what he had to say,
he said, "Okay Kelly, let's have it before you burst!"
And Kelly did look like he might be about to burst. His
face was red and puffed up with the effort of trying to appear
calm and rather superior to the rest of the group.
"Waal" he drawled, "I just got a buzz on the radio from the
Mounties saying some counterfeiters they thought they had
rounded up in London got away and are headed this way.
They stole a car just north of there. Pparently they're getting
desparate 'cause they held up a gas station to get enotg h gas."
The news was slow to take effect like a batfoot applied to
a sleeping victim, but when it finally got through to the half -
listening audience the result was electrifying. Questions
began flying. How did they know they were coming this way?
Were they armed? And finally, the question that struck ter-
ror in the hearts of all: what size of counterfeit bills were
he idea of beingstuck witha a
twenty or fifty dollar bill was almost as badas having fire passing.
For the small town businessman whose daily profit could be
counted in dollar bills, t k bad
1 fire
burn down the whole store and everything in it - worse, because
the store carried insurance. But Kelly couldn't answer their
questions, particularly the one they were most interested in.
The coffee break ended a little earlier than usual that day
as the shopkeepers rushed back to their stores to spread the word
to their staff to be on the lookout for suspicious -looking men
l t�