One and all, as soon as ever they could in decency get round to it, had this one question to ask: “What do you do when it rains?” They’d ask it with such a now-I-got-you look that it was funny to see how set-back they were when we made answer: “We do the same as you, we go in out of it.” But on the rebound you could notice the doubt forming itself in their minds as to whether we knew enough to do that. I’m sure they drove away thinking we were kind of be-addled in our intellects. I’ll have to own up to having asked: “What do you do when it rains?” in the beginning; and also, “What do you do when it blows?” But now I am convinced that a canvas tent well staked is equal to any weather, and I believe that if it had a red-hot stove in it, a body might be right cozy in a tent even in zero weather. I am going to preserve that conviction unshaken by never putting it to the test.
I said that the grocer from the village inland stopped. You notice that I didn’t say the butcher. He wouldn’t. You might go out and “holler” at him: “Hay! Hay there! Hay you! I want to talk to you. Hold on a second.” He never let on he heard you. I didn’t have a revolver, or I should have held him up. I did corner him once down at the Grove, and he explained to me he really could not be bothered with our money for his meat. He and his two men had all they could attend to now, what with their regular trade and the two hotels and the boardinghouses down along the beach. If he sold to private customers, he’d have to hire more help. When I suggested that he do that very thing and make more money, he smiled at me as one smiles at the foolish prattle of a child. Nup. He was awful sorry he couldn’t accommodate me, but—. And that ended it.
So for awhile, whenever we paddled down to the Grove in the canoe for the mail we stopped at the meat-shop. The Grove was where the giddy-go-round was; the razzle-dazzle air-ship, the whistle of whose tiny engine squealed like a frightened pig; the cake-and-coffee shop, the “red-hot” stand; the high-class “vawdvill,” admission ten cents, children five; the dancing floor, patronized by youth and beauty in duck jumpers and sleeves rolled high on red and peeling arms, ragged with strips of tissue-paper hide, each mouth distorted with an “all-day sucker” whose pine stem appetizingly protruded; the combination barber-shop and post-office where they were all out of two-cent stamps for weeks together, and “Joe’s.” I’ll get round to “Joe’s” in a minute if you’ll just be patient, but now I must tell you about the meat-shop. He was a fine fellow, the first butcher, much sought after when he had got into people’s confidence. There was the landlord that rented him the shop; there was the landlady where he roomed and boarded; there was the man he bought his meat of; there was the man he bought his twine and paper of; the man he borrowed $20 of and the man he borrowed $5 of—all seeking him and not finding him. He was—and then he was not. It was one of those mysterious disappearances you read about.
After he went away, we summer folks ungratefully conspired to ruin the land that sheltered us. You know there is no quicker and surer way to do that to a country than by shipping valuables into it. The more iron and steel and wool and chinaware and diamonds—all kinds of things you pay money for—the more of them are brought into a country, the poorer it gets. If it were possible to cover the ground knee-deep with all that heart could wish but brought from another country, the inhabitants would have to give right up, and everything would go to smash. Conversely a country which imports nothing is always immensely rich and prosperous. You know how that is in private life. The man that raises everything he eats; that does his own butchering, makes his own shoes, whose wife spins all the flax and wool the family needs—such a man is always well-to-do; he’s independent. While those who have to buy everything are always poor and forlorn. We all know this, but such is the depravity of the human heart, we want to buy things without asking whether they are made in our country or not. If it wasn’t for our wicked hearts prompting us to want things, we could easily keep out the foreign goods. So as to sort of even up the injury we do our country, it is arranged that whenever we thus sinfully buy foreign wares we pay a fine for it. The fine for ruining Canada by bringing in fresh meat to eat is six cents a pound. Now I want to tell you that when we had no butcher and the village butcher wouldn’t stop for us, there were people so selfish that they not only ruined Canada by bringing over fresh meat, but they smuggled it! Yes sir! Smuggled it. And King Edward needing the money so badly, with all the expense he is under.
The United States is just as up and coming, though, as Canada. Every bit. We don’t propose that our fair land shall be devastated by a flood of cheap Canadian mutton (it is most mighty good mutton; I’ll say that for it), so there is a fine on anybody that brings it over. The Beef Trust has expensive families to send to college too.
In response to popular demand, the baker consented to run the butcher-shop. If you found the place locked up, you stamped on the stoop and yelled awhile. He would come out, rolling the dough off his fingers and cut you off some meat. Sometimes, though you’d have to wait until he got those pies out.
He was as good-hearted a man as ever lived, but he caused me many a sleepless night. I’ll tell you how it was. One day I didn’t go for the meat. The Honest Man’s Wife went. She got a roast, five pounds and a quarter it was, at 18 cents a pound. The man figured on the cost. He put it down 70 cents, but that didn’t look quite right to him, so he set down a figure 1.
“Dollar seventy,” he said.
Now the Honest Man’s Wife had taught school, and was right good at ciphering.
“Would you mind,” she asked as innocent as a cat lapping milk, “would you mind figuring that out for me?”