There was another kind of commercial and it may have been the forerunner of all the terrible advertising jingles we are subjected to today. It had a kind of fascinating ring to it, and it is certain that all Cape children of the area were familiar with it:
“Speedy Relief is my belief
And so it is of many.
Put up in bottles
With little cork stopples
And sold by William F. Kenney.”
Less popular, but with its own solid core of supporters was Aunt Sophie’s Bitters which were brewed in the little house at the corner of Upper County Road and Depot Street. Aunt Sophie was a natural artist as a brewer of herbs and potions, for she was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and what more was needed to imbue anyone with all manner of special powers. Was something lost? The neighbors would ask Aunt Sophie about it, and like as not she could tell them where to look for it. Above all, she looked the part she had made for herself, and acted it also, for, as she picked herbs in her yard she would carry on serious conversations with the scraggly brood of hens that picked their way about her, and they would appear to be listening intently to her every word. Needless to say, small fry, on their way home from school made a wide detour around Aunt Sophie’s house. But young men on their way to sea—and young girls sick with love for them—would go to her for their “fortunes”, and come away with wonder at the prospect of their “futures”. Usually they would come away also with a bottle of the grim tasting bitters which found their way into many a Cape pantry in springtime.
Colorful as they may have been, the independent purveyors of nostrums were definitely out-classed by the village pharmacies which were, are, and very likely ever shall be, the heart of every Cape village. Here, on a cold, dark February night one finds the only light, and the only warmth, on an otherwise silent and deserted Main Street. Here, in summer, all is pleasant turmoil and confusion with a long line of small fry guzzling ice cream in the way that small fry always have since the beginnings of ice cream. And about the racks of multi-colored postal cards older folks gather, scantily-clad, but bronzed and happy, only momentarily perplexed by the problem of choosing the most appropriate card for Aunt Ella. Here are an endless variety of magazines with colorful covers that only slightly exaggerate the adventures to be found within. Likely as not some of them have never been sold, but there is, somewhere, someone who enjoys walking into the store to look them over each month. Many avail themselves of this benevolent library service and it is a rare Cape pharmacist who would make an objection. For the winter nights are quiet and long, and company, even intently-reading company, is not so bad. In winter, the pharmacy is a place to go, “up-street”. There you can feel the slow, hibernated pulse of the town, hear an evaluation of local and national issues, and woe to the candidate who fails to cover all the pharmacies. The Cape pharmacist is doctor, librarian, caterer, banker, after-hours post master, good listener, psychiatrist, moderator and custodian of the local Forum where the freedom for expressing an opinion is a sacred right, and where the news is born that has become stale before the daily paper is delivered. Nowadays, nearly all pharmacies have a druggist who has learned to decipher the illegible scrawl of the local doctor and prepare the life-saving wonder drugs for the sick. But this was not always so, and even now the shelves are filled with some of the old-fashioned remedies which have their zealous partisans.
Once, in a Cape village, there was a pharmacy without a druggist, and when a modern establishment opened nearby which boasted one it didn’t really make much difference. There were few, if any, defections among the established clientele. Late into the darkness of even a summer’s night it would be the only light on Main Street, and the gooey sundaes that were dispensed in its ice cream parlor were, for all small fry of the village, the very high spot of the day. By today’s standards it was a rather small and dark store. The clutter of its window displays, which hardly ever changed from year to year, held back the lights, and, from the old stove, that was a comfort in winter, the smell of kerosene lingered on well into the summer. There was an extensive library that was hardly ever disturbed by a purchase—and there was a proprietor who was my very good friend, as well as white-coated steward to our ice cream club. There was nothing he would not have done for us in all the years of our growing up, and his presence in the village drug store lent an air of stability to a community that had already begun to undergo drastic changes at the hands of more and more summer folk who had discovered its charm. He was never anything but kind and helpful and, when we were old enough to recognize the strong smell of “medicine” that he occasionally dispensed to himself in the shadows of a back room, we were careful to avoid mentioning it, and only hoped that he would soon be feeling better. Once, though, I nearly let him down.
For years he had ordered the Sunday New York Times for us, and for years we had paid fifteen cents for it. Then I discovered, by chance, that a store in a neighboring village stocked the same paper for ten cents. Five cents was then the price of an ice cream cone, and it seemed very important, indeed.
“Did you know that you get fifteen cents for the Times while so-and-so up the street only gets ten?” I asked him one day. He always acknowledged a greeting or a bit of conversation with a characteristic lift of the eye-brows so that when he didn’t feel a response necessary you would know that he had heard you just the same. This time the eye-brows raised at once, and the reply came quickly:
“That a fact?” I had a moment of weakness and was sorry that I had gone into it, for even five cents was not an excuse for hurting an old friend. But, standing my ground, I answered, “Yes, that’s a fact.”
But now I was treated to a series of facial expressions that would have done justice to a Barrymore. Commencing with the raised eye-brows his face ran through the whole gamut, from disbelief to pained surprise to complete puzzlement until, finally, scratching at his thinning hair, he looked me straight in the eye, and said,
“Well, now ... ain’t they foolish!” I knew when I was licked and I paid the fifteen cents then, and for many a Sunday after.