_At the Four Corners._
In the Arcadian neighborhood of our story, as is true of all rural
sections, there are at the four corners of the road the indispensable
blacksmith’s shop, the general store, the wheelwright’s place and the
creamery or the cheese factory. As places of business they always
flourish, not because of the enterprise or business tact of the
proprietors, but because, for the most part, of the natural demand
created by the wear and tear of implements used in pursuit of the
absolute necessities for the maintenance of life by the populace of the
district.
First, at the four corners of the road at The Front, and a short
distance from the Cameron farms, is Davy Simpson’s blacksmith shop.
Adjoining this is the wheelwright’s place. The front of this building
when new had been partly painted a dull red color, and then left,
as though the workman had become disgusted with the color effect,
and had abandoned the task as an artist might a shapeless daub on a
half-finished canvas. The general store, with its lean-to porch, up to
which the farmers’ wagons drive and unload their produce to exchange
for merchandise, occupies at the four corners a conspicuous frontage on
the main road.
Another industry of even greater moment to the community at The Front
is the cheese factory, which stands just past the corners and fronting
the road, jagged up on the side of a steep embankment, and resting
unsteadily upon crazy-looking standards. At the foot of the incline,
winding in its very uncertain course, is a small stream. Into this the
whey, escaping from the cheese vats, filters down the abutment spiles,
reeking in the Summer sun, to be gathered finally into the stream,
whose waters push quietly along beneath the overhanging weeds, then
crossing the roadway extending along its course, passes in the rear of
the farms of the adjoining township, The Gore.
Unpretentious and surely uninviting is the cheese factory at The Front,
but in local history, in the stories of the feuds waged between the
clans of the farmers at The Front and those at The Gore, it plays a
vitally important part, for through the lands of the latter flow the
waters of the whey-tainted creek, endangering the products of their
dairies by polluting the source of the cattle’s water supply.
At the close of each Summer’s day, regularly assembled in front of the
door to Davy Simpson’s blacksmith shop, the official gossips of the
neighborhood.
Easy is the task to picture in one’s mind this group of characters.
Seated around the doorway of the smithy, and perched upon the cinder
heap, an accumulation of years from Davy’s forge, they discussed the
affairs of their neighborhood. There in his accustomed place was
William Fraser, the country carpenter, a bent-over, round-shouldered
little man with a fringe of red whiskers extending from ear to ear and
a mustache chopped off even with the mouth as if done by a carpenter’s
adze; a pair of blue eyes peered out at you from overhanging eyebrows,
and when in motion he glided along with a walk of meekness. A long
service among the families in Glengarry, while building for them a new
barn or stable, had taught him that an agreeable opinion to whatever
were their politics or views would greatly facilitate his comfort and
pleasure. He listened intently to all that was told him of the family
troubles of his employers, and with equal interest retailed for their
entertainment the latest gossip of their neighbors. It was because of
this accomplishment that William Fraser, the carpenter, could always
be relied upon to add a few words of interest to any subject up for
discussion at the shop.
Another familiar figure was Angus Ferguson, he who had bought the
McDonald place, next to the cheese factory, a well-meaning and very
respectable man, whose wife insisted that he be back at the house each
night at eight o’clock, and she never hesitated, when he failed to
obey, to go out into the middle of the road fronting their house, and,
with her arms akimbo, call to him to “come away home.” Angus was tall,
slender and awkward. His features were kindly and the mutton-chop cut
to his whiskers and his high, bald forehead gave him more the look of a
clergyman than of a Glengarry farmer. Angus Ferguson was at all times
a listener only in the councils before the blacksmith’s. If he had
opinions, he never expressed them, and when his time would arrive to
go, without a good-night wish to his companions he slid down from the
plank placed upon the coal barrels, which was his particular seat, and,
crushing his straw hat down upon his head, started up the road, his
long, awkward arms and legs as he retreated through the darkness making
a pantomime figure in the gathering shadows.
Old Bill Blakely was the unique figure in these nightly councils of
the gossips. He came originally from no one knew where; was not of any
particular descent; knew no religious creed and respected no forms
of social etiquette. His remarks at the discussions held before the
blacksmith’s shop were always emphatic and punctuated with copious
expectorations from tobacco, followed by a line of adjectives admitting
of no uncertain meaning. Old Bill lived at quite a distance from
the meeting place of the gossip club and was always late in putting
in an appearance. He was never counted upon, though, as one of the
“regulars,” and only came when he thought there might be a chance of
picking a row with some visitor happening along from The Gore. He
would walk deliberately into the councils of the assembled habitues at
the shop, and, totally ignoring the courtesy due from a late arrival,
would proceed to act in direct violation of the club’s established
rules. Looking down upon the group of loungers, his blue eyes twinkling
and his tobacco-moistened lips quivering with a cynical smile, he
would steady himself by placing his legs at a wide angle apart, the
yellow-stained goatee of his chin bobbing an accompaniment to the
twitching of his tightly-compressed mouth.
“Well,” he would begin, “hae ye lied all there is to tell aboot your
neighbors, William Fraser? And you, Angus,” motioning with his head
toward down the road, “had better gang your way home, fer I’m goin’ to
lick the first red-head that comes over from The Gore; the night.”
Then Bill would let go a string of oaths that invariably brought the
frowning face of Davy Simpson from out of the darkness of the shop to
greet the newcomer. Dave at such times had nothing more to say than,
“Bill, that’s you, I see,”—but all was in the way he said it. The two
men appeared to understand each other very well, at least they did
since the time Dave ducked the incorrigible Bill head-first into the
puncheon of water by the side of the forge, just to show, as he said,
that there was no ill-feeling between them.
Bill’s hair was as white as that of any patriarch the county could
boast; as an excuse for a cap he wore a faded brown affair, whose
shapeless peak was as often pointed sidewise and backward as it was
straight ahead. Always blinking with a mischievous twinkle in his
eyes, his lips moistened with the tobacco he was so fond of chewing,
and quivering as though he were about to address a remark to you,
his hands pushed down deep into his pockets, his square shoulders and
well-rounded body supported by a stocky pair of legs,—imagine all this,
and you will see Bill Blakely.
For many Summers the feud of the creek existing between the men of the
two towns required the personal attention and made frequent claims
upon the fistic powers of Blakely. All the trouble had been caused by
the whey-tainted waters of the creek, which menaced the dairies of the
men at The Gore. Chuckling with great glee, old Bill would listen to
his neighbors repeat the story current over at The Gore, how upon a
certain dark night he (Blakely) had pulled the plug from the whey-tank
at the cheese factory on The Front and allowed its soured contents to
course slowly down through the stream. In the controversies with his
enemies following the perpetration of these midnight escapades at the
four corners Bill Blakely had heretofore by his convincing arguments
successfully combatted their charge. After one of these discussions
with him the men from The Gore returned to their clansmen bearing to
them, besides a pair of discolored optics, the best wishes of the men
at The Front.
But of late the tables seemed to be turning. A new condition of affairs
had developed, and the arguments which hitherto had stood Blakely in
critical times successfully failed now to give him the same degree of
satisfaction over his foes from The Gore.
[Illustration]