Village Squire, 1974-12, Page 12necessary to go to town to go to church, many
farm children never saw a train or a village or
even a store until they were six or seven years
old, and even after that did not see these
things very often.
I watched as the conductor alighted and
walked with an air of conscious worth to the
side door of the station. Only the elite
entered there.
He conferred briefly with the station agent.
He took out his large railroad watch, looked at
it with an inscrutable air, and put it back,
seemingly satisfied. One could not help but
feel that even in this brief visit a shade of
honour was being bestowed on the village. I
watched with awe. Even my good friend Mr.
McTaggart grew in my esteem from the
reflected glow of this great man.
The engineer looked from his cab and
exchanged bored jokes with some giggling
girls. One could see the fireman at the other
side; he seemed satisfied just to rest.
These people brought me a whiff of
excitement; they smelled of the unknown
world, of Londesboro and Clinton and far
and farther away, of London. Not the London
where the King was but our own great city
where some fifty thousand people lived.
Crowds had gotten off the train and crowds
got on. The magic contents were fleeting as a
sunset. The conductor grasped the handhold
by the steps. He shouted, "Bort!" and waved
his hand. The steam shot down in jets, the
wheels clanked and groaned and forward,
faster and faster, past the weight scales, past
the stock yards, over the arches, and grew
small and smaller like receding galaxy until it
disappeared in the vast unknown world to the
north. _
The rest is anti -climax. The bus wheeled
and rattled away, grown in importance with
its great rival gone. You could smell the
perfume of the driver's five -cent cigar. (You
could buy a good cigar for five cents then.)
The dray followed but was much less
impressive. The horse just scuttled along
head down like a woodchuck and the driver
was only young Hank McWhinney of no great
importance. But the dray was piled high with
trunks and mysterious boxes belonging to the
great world of commerce. Once could think
about all this.
Peace and quiet now returned and dwelt in
the land, and Grandfather and I went home to
read about Mutt and Jeff and the great
statesman and sage, Sir Wilfred Laurier.
Once there was a visitor, my namesake
from Toronto, a cousin of Grandfather. This
great man was reputed to be a millionaire,
but he was disappointing, not at all
impressive, only a slightly smoother and
more polished version of Grandfather. The
two old men sat under the maples in front of
the house, and talked. Probably they talked of
the past as old men will. I kept discreetly in
the background. Grandpa didn't say outright
but delicately hinted that children were to be
seen and not heard.
Sometimes they talked in the broad Scots of
the district from which they came. It was not
the Scots of the burring R's which we hear
from the singers and comedians but rather
soft and plaintive, with a lilt like Welsh or
Swedish.
Years later as I was going into Toronto with
a bundle of furs to sell, I saw this man's
business sign. There it was in big letters; and
it was also my own name. It gave me
confidence for the ordeal ahead. If this man
could make good why not I? Perhaps it
helped. The Jewish gentleman with whom I
did business had a certain respect for the
Scotch. They regarded them, not as equals
exactly, but as people who had rudimentary
sense of merchandising and of the
manipulative power of money and goods.
Later still I shipped furs to. the Scots who
controlled the fur trade in England. It is Scots
over there, of course, not Scotch, which most
of the world knows as a beverage. Then it was
that my eyes were opened and I found my
education was only beginning.
When Grandfather L. was gone I shifted for
myself until Grandfather C. took over.
Grandfather C. had given up his business in
the village and lived much of the time at our
home. He was welcome enough, especially
with me, since he was quick-witted and
livened up the place. One had to look sharp to
stay even with him.
He and Dad were on good terms, though
politically they were on opposite sides of the
fence. Here they observed a somewhat wary
truce. We had rural mail by this time, and
when the mail came at noon each day 1 sped
the 200 yards to the box and returned
somewhat more slowly trying to gulp down
the sports page and the comics before I had to
hand over the papers to higher-ups. I can still
name most of the ballplayers who made up
the Leaf International teams at that time.
Dad took the Globe which had not fallen
from grace then and was Liberal. Grandpa C.
had the Mail and Empire, true blue Tory.
After going over the respective sheets they
10, VILLAGE SQUIRE/NOVEMBER W74