Michael McGrath, Postmaster

by Ralph Connor

"An' what would he do wid another man's letter forby the discooshun that might enshoo?"

I was very soon to have an opportunity of observing the working of Ould Michael's system, for next day was mailday and, in the early afternoon, men began to arrive from the neighboring valleys for their monthly mail. Ould Michael introduced me to them all with much ceremony and I could easily see that he was a personage of importance among them. Not only was he, as postmaster, the representative among them of Her Majesty's Government, but they were proud of him as standing for all that was heroic in the Empire's history; for a man who had touched shoulders with those who had fought their way under India's fierce suns and through India's swamps and jungles, from Calcutta to Lucknow and back, was no common citizen, but a man who trailed glory in his wake. More than this, Ould Michael was a friend to all, and they loved him for his simple, generous heart. Too generous, as it turned out, for every month it was his custom to summon his friends to Paddy Dougan's bar and spend the greater part of the monthly remittance that came in his letter from home. That monthly letter should be placed in the category of household gods with the flag, the garden and the postoffice. Its arrival was always an occasion for celebration—not for the remittance it contained, but for the wealth of love and tender memory it brought to Ould Michael in this far-off land.

Late in the afternoon, just before the arrival of the mail-stage, there rode up the bench towards the postoffice a man remarkable even in that company of remarkable men. He was tall—a good deal over six feet—spare, bony, with huge hands and feet and evidently possessed of immense strength. His face and head were covered with a mass of shaggy hair—brick-red mixed with grey—and out of this mass of grizzled hair gleamed two small grey eyes, very bright and very keen.

"Howly mither av Moses!" shouted Ould Michael rushing towards him; "'tis McFarquhar. My friend, Mr. McFarquhar," said Ould Michael, presenting me in his most ceremonious style and standing at attention.

McFarquhar took my hand in his paw and gave me a grasp so cordial that, were it not for the shame of it, I would have roared out in agony.

"I am proud to make the acquaintance of you," he said, with a strong highland accent. "You will be a stranger in these parts?"

I told him as much of my history and affairs as I thought necessary and drew from him as much information about himself and his life as I could, which was not much. He had come to the country a lad of twenty to take service under the Hudson Bay Company. Fifteen years ago had left the Company and had settled in the valley of Grizzly Creek, which empties into the Fraser a little below the Grand Bend. I found out too, but not from himself, that he had married an Indian woman and that, with her and his two boys, he lived the half-savage life of a hunter and rancher. He was famous as a hunter of the grizzly bears that once frequented his valley and, indeed, he bore the name of "Grizzly McFarquhar" among the old-timers.

He was Ould Michael's dearest friend. Many a long hunt had they taken together, and over and over again did they owe their lives to each other. But the hour had now come for the performance of Ould Michael's monthly duty. The opening of the mail was a solemn proceeding. The bag was carried in from the stage by Ould Michael, followed by the entire crowd in a kind of triumphal procession, and reverently deposited upon the counter. The key was taken down from its hook above the window, inserted into the lock, turned with a flourish and then hung up in its place. From his pocket Ould Michael then took a clasp-knife with a wicked-looking, curved blade, which he laid beside the bag. He then placed a pair of spectacles on his nose and, in an impressive manner and amidst dead silence, opened the bag, poured out its contents upon the counter, turned it inside out and carefully shook it. No one in the crowd moved. With due deliberation Ould Michael, with the wicked-looking clasp knife, proceeded to cut the strings binding the various bundles of letters and papers. The papers were then deposited beneath the counter upon the floor, and the letters spread out upon the counter. The last act of the ceremony was the selecting by Ould Michael of his own letter from the pile, after which, with a waive of the hand, he declared, "Gentlemen, the mail is open," when they flung themselves upon it with an eagerness that told of the heart-hunger for news from a far-country that is like cool water to the thirsty soul.

The half-hour that followed the distribution of the mail offered a scene strange and touching. The men who had received letters stood away from the crowd and read them with varying expressions of delight or grief, or in silence that spoke more deeply than could any words. For that half-hour the lonely valleys in these deep forests stood back from them, and there opened up a vision of homes far away, filled with faces and echoing with voices that some of them knew they would never see nor hear again.

But no man ever saw Ould Michael read his letter. That half-hour he spent in his inner room and, when he came out, there was lingering about his face a glory as of a departing vision. The dark-blue eyes were darker than before and in them that soft, abstracted look that one sees in the eye of a child just awakened from sleep. His tongue, so ready at other times, would be silent; and he would move softly over to his friend McFarquhar, and stand there as in a dream. As he came toward us on this occasion, McFarquhar said, in an undertone: "It is good news to-day with Ould Michael," adding in answer to my look of inquiry, "His sister has charge of his little girl at home."