By Gregory Clark, October 21, 1922.
If it is neighbors you want, go north.
If you are sick of the soft, fickle hand of city brotherhood, head for some place beyond North Bay.
If you are seeking the Land of the Golden Rule, you will find it, chances are, in a blackened and forsaken and dismal country lying between Cobalt and Englehart…
—
An old man comes limping up the hill to the relief car at Charlton. He must be all of seventy. His overcoat is six sizes too large for him. A boy’s cap perches on top of his old grey head. His broken shoes are sodden with slush. He seeks each spot he sets his foot. He winces with each step.
As he approaches the little group huddled about the door of the lone express car, a woman sitting on a box rises to give the old man her place.
“Sit down, woman,” says the old man. “A fine day, everybody?”
It isn’t. But they all agree it is.
He rests against the car. Presently his turn comes to stand before the opulent open door.
“Now, dad, what?” says the constable dishing out supplies.
“Somethin’ warm for an old woman and an old man,” says the old fellow.
“Well, you’ve got a coat,” begins the constable.
“Oh, ’tain’t for me,” says the old man. “It’s for an old couple, neighbors of mine. They are too old to come, so I come for them. They…”
“Were you burned out?” queries the constable.
“Me and them and the whole concession,” says the old man. “We are all starting over again in W—‘s barn. Now, the old woman, she needs a cloak…”
“How far have you come?”
“Oh, three, four mile.”
Out come priceless things from the express car – coats, sweaters, stockings, heavy wool underclothes.
The old man’s arms heap up. A boy steps over and says —
“I’ll help you carry them, mister.”
“You go help your own father,” says the old man, sternly.
And down the hill he goes limping, under a large bundle tied in a sheet.
A neighbor.
—
A big, mustached man is standing at a crossroads, his back to the driving rain.
Every party that comes trudging up the road has women and children in it. The big fellow halts them all.
“Where are you heading?”
“Englehart,” they answer.
“It’ll be dark in an hour. Never make it to-night. My place is half a mile up the side road here. Something to eat and room for the woman and kids in the house if you’ll share the barn with me.”
“Thanks, mister.”
The heavy-hearted little parties turn off the lonely road up the muddy side road.
And the neighbor stands with his big back to the spinning rain, watching up the desolate highroad.
—
A middle-aged man sits in the shelter of a bit of ruined brick wall. In his arms is cuddled a baby in a piece of soiled white blanket.
“A pretty baby,” I say to him. “Is it your only child?”
He blushes with the violence of the northerner.
“This ain’t mine,” he says. “Mine is all growed up. This one belongs to a young woman that took sick and they took her out to New Liskeard in a buggy. I’m carrying her baby in.”
“Why, it’s miles!” I exclaim.
“Well, I’ve come miles. But I’ll meet a car pretty soon, I figure. Anyway, it don’t matter – he’s nice and warm.”
—
Amid the ruins of what once was a house, a barn and a cow stable, a broad young man is toiling with an axe and some long nails and blackened remnants of timber.
Both his hands are swathed in dirty bandages. Above the bandages his wrists show scarlet and raw. He handles his axe gingerly, clumsily.
He proudly surveys the pitiful little lean-to he has made out of brittle charred boards.
“What’s this you’re making?” I ask.
“Well,” says he, resting gratefully. “It’s a sort of a cow shed. If my hands weren’t burned I could cut some logs out of that bit of swale over yonder that escaped the burn. But this’ll do fine, for a while.”
“Was this your homestead?”
“No, it belonged to a fellow I worked for, summer before last. He got all messed up saving his own kids and his neighbors, so I says to him I’ll fix up a shelter for his cows.”
—
If you don’t believe these legends, go and see for yourself.
Editor’s Note: Greg was sent to cover the Great Haileybury Fire that ravaged the Timiskaming District from October 4 to 5, 1922. It has been called one of the ten worst natural disasters in Canadian history.
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