Village Squire, 1974-12, Page 10Presbyterians and the Irish Catholics were
very much alike, though they would recoiled
in horror at the thought. If this had been
rough mountain country they might have
turned in on themselves and become
hillbillies. But the country was fertile; it
became prosperous, and though something of
a backwater and not in the main stream of
progress, the area in which I grew up kept
pretty much up-to-date. Super highways and
swift motor travel have dumped us right out
into the world now. Older people may cling to
some of the intolerance of the past, but soon
that will be gone. Other things more
admirable, such as neighbourliness, and the
wish to give an honest day's work in return
for a day's pay, may go too.
The pioneers were the daring ones, the
venturesome ones; they risked everything
because they had vision. This new country
drew them. They were caught in a dream. A
dream of making something where there had
been nothing, of a new land, a new and better
society. None of them would have thought of
it this way. They were people more
accustomed to doing than to introspective
thinking. That could come later. First they
must cut down the trees, pull the stumps,
painfully till the land and reap enough to
exist.
But to go back to Grandfather. After he was
gone, and 1 was a young man. I came across a
picture of him, taken at about the same age as
I was then. From this small smoky tintype
looked out someone surprisingly like myself,
except for the page boy haircut. There he
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stood, my frail old man, but now he was
"young. There was an axe in his hand, a
symbol of the times. Ahead of him were years
of toil, sweat and privation, but here he faced
the world unafraid with an air of careless
confidence.
When I first became aware of him he had
retired to our village, and leased the farm to
my father. He would visit the farm, or me, as
I thought, and I would visit him. We would go
for walks. There was a sense of security. He
talked much more easily than Dad but I don't
recall that we conversed at any length. He
explained things much as if he were
discovering them himself at the same time.
Perhaps he was in a way looking at the world
from a child's viewpoint.
He never spoke harshly, he never said,
"Get down off that fence," or "Mind that
puddle". He preferred to let nature take its
course so I could learn that way. The freedom
of action inspired a certain amount of caution.
There was no undue sympathy when one did
get hurt.
We took slow staid walks because he
couldn't go very fast. We gathered stones,
with fossils of weird creatures of another age,
for this was gravelly country where such rocks
might be found. We each had a collection. I
inherited his when he died, and kept both
assortments for many years. They were a link
with him with which I was very reluctant to
part.
We walked along the nearby railway tracks
to the huge embankment carrying the tracks
over another railway and a big creek. There
• Scarves •Gloves
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WINGHAM, ONT.
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8, VILLAGE SQUIRE/NOVEMBER 1974
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STRATFORD, ONTARIO
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