Tag: 1920 Page 1 of 3

A Christmas Tale

On December 26, 2024

By Gregory Clark, December 24, 1920.

Once upon a time there were three wise men living in a hole in the ground.

The hole was deep and dark and cold. In the light of one guttering candle the walls of the hole shone wet. And down the steep, rotting, stairway ran little streams of icy water of melted snow. For it was winter, up above this hole in the ground.

In fact, it was Christmas Eve.

And the three wise men crouched close to an old tin pail, which was punched full of holes to be a brazier, and in it burned a feeble fire.

“Cold!” said the first wise man who was wise in the matter of bombs and knobkerries¹ and of killing men in the dark.

“Bitter!” said the second, whose wisdom was of maps and places and distances: a man who was never known to be lost in the blackest night In Noman’s Land.

“Cold as Christmas!” added the third, who was wise in the way of food, who had never let himself or his comrades go hungry, but could always find food, no matter how bright the day or how watchful the eyes of quartermasters or French peasants.

“Christmas!” exclaimed the first. “Why, let’s see! Why, to-morrow is Christmas. To-night, boys, is Christmas Eve.”

And the three wise men stared across the brazier silently at each other; so that only the crackle of the feeble fire and the trickle of the icy water down the stairway could be heard.

They stared and stared. Strange expressions came and went in their eyes. Tender expressions. Hard, determined expressions.

“Right now,” said the first man, finally, “my girl will be putting my two little kiddies to bed. And a hard time she is having. They want to stay down stairs to see what all the mysterious bustle is about.”

He paused to put his hands over the little glow of coals. Then added:

“I sent the boy one of them blue French caps, and the girl a doll I got in Aubigny²–“

The second, who had been staring into the glow intently, said softly:

“I haven’t any kids, but my mother will be hanging up one of my old black cashmere socks to-night. She’ll probably fill it with candies and raisins, and send it in my next box. She’s probably now sitting in the red rocking chair, with my picture resting on her knee, humming the way she used to–“

The third wise man, whose eyes were hard and bright, probably thinking of the Christmas dinners he had eaten of old, drew a sharp breath, stared about him at the wet earth walls, at the rotting stairway and the water and filth all around him.

“Christmas!” he cried, in a strained voice. “Think of it! Peace on earth, good will towards men. And here we are, like beasts in our cave, killers, man-hunters, crouching here in this vile, frozen hole until the word is passed and we go out into the night to creep and slay!”

“Steady,” admonished the first.

For the sound of someone slowly descending the rotting wet stairway could be heard.

And into the hole in the ground came a Stranger. He was dressed in plain and mud-spattered uniform. He wore no rank badges or badges of any kind. In fact, he had neither arms nor equipment, which was odd, to say the least, in the forward trenches.

“I heard you talking of Christmas,” he said, “so I just dropped in to wish you the compliments of the season.”

When he removed his helmet, they saw he was fine looking man with kindly face, but pale and weary.

“Thanks,” said the first, moving over. “Edge up to the fire. It ain’t much, but it’s warm, what there is–“

“What unit are you?” asked the second, as the Stranger knelt by the brazier.

“Oh, no particular unit,” replied the Stranger. “I just visit up and down.”

“A padre?” asked the third, respectfully but doubtfully, as he eyed the Stranger’s uniform, which was a private’s, and his fine, gentle face.

“Yes, something of the sort,” replied the Stranger. “You boys were talking about Christmas and home. Go on. Don’t stop for me. I love to hear that sort of thing, once in a while.”

And as he said it, he drew a breath as if in pain; and his face grew whiter.

“Here,” exclaimed the first wise man. “Let me give you a drop of tea. You’re all in.”

And he placed on the brazier his mess tin to warm over a little tea he had left.

“And eat a little, of this,” said the second wise man, handing the stranger a hard army biscuit. “Dry, but it’ll take away that faint feeling.”

“Say, here’s an orange,” said the third, producing a golden fruit from his side pocket. “The last of my loot, but you’re welcome to it.”

The Stranger accepted these gifts with a smile that touched the hearts of the three.

“I am hungry,” he admitted. “And weary. And sick, too, I expect.”

And as he ate and drank, the three wise men continued, with a somewhat more restraint, their talk of Christmas. The Stranger listened eagerly, drinking in each word, each bashful, chuckle of the three.

And at last, the third, reverting defiantly to his original theme, exclaimed:

“But think of it! Christmas, peace on earth; and here we are like wolves in our den! How can we be here, and yet celebrate Christmas? It is unthinkable. What do you say, sir?

And the Stranger, with an expression of pain and a light on his countenance replied:

“The ways of God are hidden from us. But remember this: out of all this suffering, by every divine law, good must come. On Christmases still to be, you men must recall to-night, so that the sacrifice be not forgotten, and a mocking world again betray those who died for ideals.”

The Stranger rose abruptly.

“I must be on my way,” he said. “I have a long way to go to-night.”

And he handed the first wise man the mess tin.

“Hello,” said the first, remarking an ugly scar on the Stranger’s hand. “I see you’ve been wounded.”

“A long time ago,” said the Stranger.

“On the head, too,” observed the second wise man, eyeing a series of small scars on the Stranger’s brow.

“My helmet,” replied the Stranger, “presses heavily.”

And he bade the three good-night.

But as he stepped up the rotting stairway, the three were staring speechless at one another.

“An hungered and ye gave me meat!³” whispered the first. “A stranger, and ye took me in!”

And the three leaped to the foot of the stairway.

But the Stranger had gone.

Editor’s Notes: This is an earlier version of the story published on December 23, 1939, The White Hand.

A knobkerrie is form of wooden club, used mainly in Southern Africa and Eastern Africa. ↩︎
Aubigny-sur-Nère is a town in France. ↩︎
This is from Matthew 25:35 in the Bible. The New International Version has it as: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” I’m not sure what version has it as “an hungered”. ↩︎

“Yes ’tis the Sport of Kings”

by admin

On October 1, 2024

In Comic, Life's Little Comedies

The Office Picnic

by admin

On July 16, 2024

In Comic, Life's Little Comedies

Apparently, a “fat man’s race” was a common activity at organized picnics at the time.

Trout Fishing Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be–Not This Year!

by admin

On May 30, 2024

In Miscellaneous, Other Story

***Swish, thump! Out came a ten-inch beauty.***

The Thrills Prove Chiefly to Be in the Anticipation – Farmers’
Minds Seem Hopelessly Confused on Some Things, But One of Them Breaks All the Traditions of Trout Fishing and Catches Three Beauties in Ten Minutes.

By Gregory Clark, May 29, 1920.

When you go trout fishing, take along a good supply of magazines, novels, an indoor baseball outfit and a ouija board.

For, about 2.30 o’clock of the afternoon of your first day on the fishing ground, you will begin to yearn for one or the other of the above forms of recreation.

Trout fishing consists, in the finer aspects, of anticipation and retrospection. There is no finer thrill than in picking early spring model fishworms in your backyard and visioning the swift stream and the flashing speckled jewel you will catch with each squirming wormlet. The planning, the talking it over, poetically, dramatically, with your friends, the packing, the first railway journey of the season – Ah! It is romance!

And the telling of it afterwards. In June, the eleven poor little trout you caught have multiplied to twenty-five. By midsummer, they are, fifty speckled beauties. By autumn, when a sportsman is at his best, from a literary point of view, that stingy little eleven has grown to many creels-full, with a whacking big realistic, dramatic lie attached to every fish.

There are three trout streams to the average trout expedition. The first is the brook you had in mind when you started on the trip. It is fished the first day, when enthusiasm is still high, and before the truth of the old adage about anticipation has sunk in. This first stream, the scene of all your spring dreams, yields three small trout of doubtfully lawful size.

The second stream is the one about four miles away which the natives inform you is full of fish. You visit it the second day, and after landing five three-inch chub, in one hour, you retire to a sunny bank and wait for the gang to re-assemble.

The third type of stream is the fabulous brook in which trout under one pound in weight are seldom if ever caught. The farmers and residents assure you that it is the real thing in trout streams But it is ten miles inland. And its a dirty and difficult stream to fish.

This third type renders up not even a chub. It runs cold and swift, full of dark, log-bound holes where beautiful trout should be lurking. But the most skilful sneaking of your bait in under these shadowy pools results in merely hooking a log.

At least, this was our experience up Lake of Bays way last week-end. We aren’t grouching, understand. We had our share of sport in planning, in the thrill of the journey, the arrival at Huntsville at 2 a.m., and the departure by boat from Huntsville at the still frostier hour of 7 a.m. But we hadn’t along any magazines or baseball kit.

The trout fisherman is advised to fish in the parts of the stream hardest to get at, because the easier places have been fished out. We tried that. We fought through acres of underbush and swamp and then found our rods were too long. They caught the line on all kinds of unexpected twigs. It is all nonsense to say that trees have no intelligence. After one day’s trout fishing, anyone who would say that all those branches grew where they were merely by chance is lacking in spiritual perception. Trees, especially alders, have a sense of humor, too.

Well, well! So we shortened our rods, and then found we couldn’t reach the best holes. About then, we began to yearn for a snappy detective story.

The confusion in the minds of the farmers and residents in the trout neighborhood is alarming. In the same family, father will say it is too cold for the trout to bite; son will say, it is too warm. At one farmhouse on the third or fabulous stream, where we were to get nothing but, one-pounders, the farmer said the trout hadn’t come up from the lake yet, and five minutes later, his wife assured us that the trout hadn’t come down from the spring sources yet.

Over near Baysville, I fished the second day until I had landed four chub out of a 500-yard stretch of creek. Not a trout did I flush. Not a fingerling. So I retired to a sunny bank and smoked, awaiting the gang’s return.

Down to the corduroy bridge came a young farmer and his small boy and a dog.

“Gettin’ any?” he asked, amiably.

“No. Not biting to-day. Too cold” I replied.

“Well, I’m counting on a couple for supper,” said he.

From behind a stump, he drew from concealment a seven-foot alder pole with a hook and line on it. Out of his vest pocket he produced a worm. The little boy scampered up and down the creek, peering and yelling into the pools I had so warily stalked. The dog excitedly followed the boy, barking at the creek. Dad threw his bait in and – swish, thump! Out came a ten-inch beauty. In 40 yards, be performed this deed three times, whistled for his boy and his dog, replaced his pole in hiding, bade me good evening and went home to a trout supper.

As soon as he was out of sight, I arose from the sunny bank and fished that stream inch by inch, carefully, carelessly; sneaking up to it one time, and standing boldly exposed the next; even yelling like a small boy and barking like a dog. But all I got was one pallid chub.

Where’s the sense in this, anyway?

However, the second phase of trout-fishing, retrospection, sets in early. When we got on the boat to go back to Huntsville, the purser asked us if we had any luck. And without collusion and nary a blush, we jovially assured him we had never had better sport, and we led him to believe our hand-bags were full of trout. By the time we reached the town, among the forty-odd passengers, we were pointed out as ardent trout experts returning from the kill. And thereupon began to form in our minds next autumn’s thundering tales of grand battles amid the alder groves of gleaming brooks.

At the hotel in Huntsville, we found two Presbyterian ministers standing beside a wooden box that was leaking water on the floor. They had ordinary 50-cent brass-jointed bamboo rods tied with string.

We manoeuvred into converse with them.

“Fish?” we asked, glancing at the big leaky box.

“Yes,” they said. “Speckled trout. We only had a couple of days, and we only got seventy. And now, it the ice doesn’t hold out, we’re afraid they might spoil.”

They were ministers. We had to believe them.

Engaged

by admin

On May 14, 2024

In Comic, Life's Little Comedies

Booze-Running Had its Humors and its Tragedies

by admin

On January 11, 2024

In Miscellaneous, News Article

***An old man in the next chair glared out from behind his paper.***

When it was Illegal to Import Spirits from Montreal There was an “Underground Railway” in Operation, Which Succeeded Many Times in Beating the Police, But Which Also Enriched the City Treasury by $500.000 – A Few of the Funniest Stories that are Told.

By Gregory Clark, January 10, 1920.

Now that liquor can be imported legally into Ontario¹, some of the tales pertaining to the illegal importation of booze may safely be told.

Sober citizens have snapped their fingers, during the past four years, and said:

“Pah! There is more drinking nowadays than ever before! Liquor is coming into this town by the carload. The police don’t even pretend to stop it. Why, I know four places right now that I can phone to, and have a bottle of whiskey delivered here in five minutes.”

We all know this sober citizen. Needless to say, if he had really known of four such miraculous places, he wouldn’t have been wearing such an old hat. He could have sold his information and made a fortune.

No, the majority of such romancers were either highly imaginative extopers², who, in the dire dessication of modern times, permitted themselves a free fancy; or merely wise guys of that old type which knows of so many wicked and thrilling places, but which seems content to remain in the haunts of ordinary and gullible men.

Nevertheless, that there have been underground routes for liquor, everyone knows. The whiffs of half-forgotten odors that we occasionally got on street cars were not all from doctor’s prescriptions. The hilarious gentleman on the night-car hadn’t been sitting at a sick-bed. And we all know of somebody who has a friend who safely wangled one lone bottle of rye in his suitcase from Montreal.

Taxicab drivers have been accused of being Toronto’s liveliest source of illicit liquor. All you had to do, the wise guy said, was to phone a taxi stand and the bottle was yours.

We asked one of Toronto’s senior police officials about the underground of liquor traffic.

“Did it exist?” we asked.

“It did,” said he.

“Why wasn’t it stopped like the underground drug traffic?”

“Because,” said the official, “in the drug traffic, there are a few crooks engaged in a sly business. They are hard to find, but once found, are easily squashed.

“But when crooks, bootleggers, lawyers, financiers, professors, bankers, clubmen, business men, aldermen, and even a few church officials all engaged whole-heartedly in the jovial game of booze-smuggling, the police, numerically inferior, were up against a big job. Some liquor was bound to leak in. To say that the police have done nothing is hardly exact. Their activities in Toronto alone, in the past three years, have cost the cosmopolitan booze runners over half a million dollars.”

The first and most popular method of smuggling liquor into Ontario was by freight.

The liquor, cunningly disguised as anything from a bale of hay to a human corpse, was addressed to the consignee who ordered it. Any article of merchandise big enough to contain a quart of whiskey was utilized as camouflage by the imaginative smugglers. The police and Inland Revenue Officers kept as close tab on these methods as was possible. But to probe every item of freight entering Ontario would have necessitated the remobilization of the C. E. F³.

One of the cutest ideas was a dozen cases of Scotch shipped as human body. The whiskey was in a beautiful black coffin inside the shipping box, just to allay suspicion. A case where the body was absent but the spirit present.

The second most profitable system, according to record, was by means of motor cars or lorries. To motor to Montreal or neighboring ports, load up at the alleged hoards, and drive home, was said to have been as easy as rolling off a log. But it had its comedies of error, too.

A Toronto military man decided to replenish his cellar. He drove in his touring car to Montreal, loaded up with $300 worth of assorted delicacies and started home. Outside Belleville, his car skidded into a ditch.

Presidently along came a flivver.

“Quit hoggin’ the hull highway!” yelled its two occupants at the Toronto man. And they got out of their flivver to investigate the Toronto man’s predicament.

While giving him the benefit of their advice, they casually noted the square contents of the ditched car, said contents being vainly covered with rugs.

“Excuse me,” said one of the strangers, “but I’m the county constable. Pardon me if I seem to examine your cargo.”

Luck? Merely luck. The Toronto man was soaked $500 and costs at the nearest court of competent jurisdiction, and the assorted delicacies were confiscated.

The third method of importation was by hand. The police have uncovered many schemes for concealing liquor about the body in hollow metal body shields. But the ordinary suitcase, handbag and trunk were the principal means used.

A Toronto traveling-man, finding himself in Montreal with an empty sample trunk, decided to load it up with liquor. He did so. He had it carefully deposited at the station, and hung around till he saw it safe on board. Then he took a seat in the coach nearest the baggage car, and at every stop between Montreal and Toronto, he hung out the window to make sure that his precious trunk was not put off.

Arriving at the Union Station, he trolled unconcernedly into the baggage room to claim his trunk. Picture his horror when he found his trunk set to one side in the “excess baggage” corner.

He figured he was found out, and that the police had set it aside, awaiting to pinch him as soon as he claimed it.

He was sick with disappointment. But he remembered he had a good friend high up in the railway company. Rushing to his office, he telephoned this friend, confessing all.

“And they’ve set my trunk aside,” he said. “You get it out, and I give you a good share of the contents”

“Sure,” said his friend. “Don’t worry. I’ll do what I can.”

And sure enough that afternoon, the precious sample trunk was delivered up to its owner’s home.

Feverishly, he opened it. It was empty!

Not a smell of liquor in it. Who had done this wicked thing: someone on the train, in the station, or was it his friend?

But the joke was on the traveling man. He could not kick⁴.

That was more than half the humor of the smuggling game. Whatever happened, one couldn’t raise a kick. Being contraband, liquor could be stolen with impunity.

Two friends were on the train coming from Montreal. Each had a bottle of whiskey in his grip⁵. They were in the smoking car.

“Look here,” whispered one to the other, “why should both of us run the risk of being caught. You put my bottle in with yours and then if you’re caught, I’ll split the fine with you. You’ll find my satchel back behind my seat.

“Shoot,” whispered the other. “That’s the talk. I’ll do it.”

But into the parlor car he went, drew his friend’s handbag from under the seat and quietly and stealthily withdrew the bottle of liquor from it.

An old man opposite suddenly looked out from behind his paper and beheld this action, glared at him but said nothing.

“Caught, sure,” said the traveler who felt the gaze of his fellow-passenger piercing his very vitals. “That fellow’s a detective and I’ll be pinched as soon as I arrive in Toronto.”

But nothing happened.

On arriving at their hotel, the two travelers opened their grips.

“Hello!” said the one, “I thought you put my bottle of whiskey in your grip!”

“So I did,” replied the other, producing two bottles from his bag.

In silent astonishment, the other produced a bottle from his.

“Great Scotch!” cried the first, “I must have opened that detective’s bag by mistake!”

He had. And the other chap, not knowing who the others might be, the was powerless to raise an objection. He happened to be staying at the same hotel, but when the friends hunted him up and returned the bottle he failed to see the joke.

“Whole carloads of whiskey have disappeared in transit,” say the police “If a foxy railway employe discovers a car of whiskey labelled sewing machines, and can sidetrack that car, he is fairly safe in assuming that the owners of the car, fearing they are discovered, will not raise a run holler.”

As the ravens fed Elijah, so did a jocular fate bring a grateful gift to a little village outside Toronto.

This little village is one of those way-stations which closes up at night, even the locals passing it swiftly by. The station agent goes home about nine o’clock in the evening.

One night, not long ago, a freight car was quietly sided at this station, The agent had gone home. All was silent.

About midnight, one of the village worthies, on his way home, passed the station.

Now this man had sort of a sixth sense. He could smell liquor through a cement vault,

He felt his spine tingling and his hair rising as he passed the station.

“Spirits!” he said, softly.

Just to see if his senses had betrayed him, he came over and investigated the lone box car.

Sure enough, it was packed full of cases of whiskey.

Here was a problem.

“This liquor,” argued the villager with himself, “is contraband. Some wicked man is trying to smuggle this liquor into the country. Is he going to get away with it? Well, not with all of it!”

And the villager hastened to the home of another villager. A working party was secretly assembled, and several buggies, democrats and Bain wagons⁶ came in the night to the lone freight car.

***A working party was secretly assembled, and several buggies, democrats and Bain wagons came in the night to the lone freight car.***

In the morning, the station agent, on arriving, found a freight car the siding, broken open, and about a quarter full of cases of whiskey. He Immediately notified railway headquarters and that afternoon a number of officials and police appeared on the scene.

The police scoured the village for the looted liquor. Suspect after suspect was visited. At several places, where they were cheerfully shown over the premises, they were given a quiet snort by the jovial owners. In fact, the police were of the opinion that nowhere had they encountered a village the cellars of which were go well stocked. And such fine, amiable people, too! But a hoard of looted liquor was nowhere to be found.

The police finally gave up the search, deciding that in all probability, some professional gang of booze runners from the city had arranged to have the car side-tracked at the village, and had motored out and taken most of their haul, leaving some because of daylight.

And the village concurs in this theory.

Editor’s Notes:

Even though Prohibition was in effect in Ontario, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had ruled in 1896 that provinces do not have the authority to prohibit the importation of alcohol. Quebec allowed alcohol at the time. This loophole was closed in the 1921 referendum. ↩︎
I’m not sure if this is a typo, I cannot find the definition of this word. ↩︎
The Canadian Expeditionary Force from World War One. ↩︎
Slang for “complain”. ↩︎
Slang for “suitcase”. ↩︎
Democrats and Bain wagons were types of horse drawn carriages. ↩︎

Afraid to Go Home

by admin

On December 7, 2023

In Illustration, Miscellaneous

This drawing went with a short article advertising the Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund, a charity for the poor. The article talks of the unemployed father who finds it hard to go home to the family for the Christmas season with nothing. It still runs every year, and you can donate at the link above.

A Hallowe’en Tragedy on the Detroit

by admin

On October 31, 2023

In Comic, Life's Little Comedies

This comic references Prohibition where someone is trying to smuggle a liquor filled pumpkin across the Detroit river between Canada and the United States. Though Ontario had Prohibition at the time, it did not ban the manufacture of alcohol so there was still smuggling from Canada to the USA.

Summer Resort Golf is a Game With Features All Its Own

by admin

On August 24, 2023

In Miscellaneous, Other Story

***“The farmers of the neighborhood have suffered severe losses to their livestock.”***

Like Real Golf, It Is Played With Clubs and Balls, But There the Resemblance Ceases – Local Rules That Exasperate the Expert and Delight the Dub – A Remarkable Mushroom Find.

By Gregory Clark, August 21, 1920.

Muskoka golf is a game all by itself. In fact, all summer resort golf is a game apart. It has certain points of resemblance to the Royal and Ancient Game played by all successful business men and ministers of the Gospel at the city clubs.

But one brief glance at any summer hotel links will suffice to show that except for a similarity in balls and clubs, a new and delightful and mysterious sport has been improvised.

The rules differ in the various districts. These, however, are typical, being from a links at the northern extremity of Muskoka.

Local rules:

“A ball which is played on to stoney ground or amid boulders or in front of a stump, may be removed two club lengths without penalty.

“When sheep or cattle stray on to the fairway, players are requested to drive them off or wait until they are clear of the fairway before resuming play, as the farmers of the neighborhood have suffered severe losses to livestock on the links in past years.

“Players whose handicap is 15 or less in recognized clubs will be provided with a small whistle at the hotel desk, and on the sounding of this whistle all other golfers will move to the side of the course and give right-of-way, permitting the more expert players to pass through.

“Players who desire to rest owing to the heat must move off the fairway.

“Lady/golfers who have been in the habit of picnicking on the fifth green will please move to the grove 50 yards to the right, where benches have been provided.

“Ladies with small children must not have them accompany them on the round unless accompanied by a nurse or governess.

“Perambulators must not be taken around the course.”

Needless to say, this game, as described in the above local rules, proves a severe shock to the gentlemen who have seen “golf” mentioned in the hotel advertisements. The golfer who sets out to play a game immediately after arriving at the summer hotel returns hastily, in about an hour, with a strained, frightful expression on his face, and devotes the rest of his two weeks’ holiday to canoeing, sailing and swimming.

One class of persons, however, secures a real and profound pleasure out of Muskoka golf.

These are the second, third and tenth-rate golfers who can pose on hotel verandahs as great and distinguished golf players.

You see, there is no likelihood of their being found out. At home, at their own club, their status is known. Their pathetic, profound rottenness at golf is everybody’s knowledge.

But up in Muskoka, where they are known to nobody, one of these poor fellows, togged out like Harry Vardon or George Lyon, with a great bagful of clubs, can get enough pleasure posing about as a he-golfer to last him the rest of the sad season.

Of course, it takes some manipulation and diplomacy. He must not be found out. He must, if possible, play his games when nobody else is on the course – early In the morning or at hotel meal hours. But that is easy.

“Great snakes!” he says, with superior and confidential disgust, “I can’t play with all those dubs foozling their way, about the course!”

So he hunts around until he locates among the hotel guests some other impostor and platonic liar like himself – for there are always numbers of them at every summer resort. And these two stick together, playing golf indefatigably, morning, noon and eve. And at meals, on the verandah on wet days, and on the links, whenever the opportunity presents itself, they pose, they redeem all those years of dubbery at their home clubs, they register the emotions of Ray and Ouimet, addressing the ball.

Once in a while they are caught.

As for instance, at a great Muskoka hotel last week. A big, arrogant gentleman with an enormous golf bag which contained all tools of the trade had been saying:

“The best score on this course ever made was thirty. I’m out to beat it!”

Everybody in the hotel knew he was out to beat.

He was very canny: Few people had ever been able to see him tee off.

One early morning this big chap encountered a little, slim boyish fellow all in the white flannel uniform of a Muskoka canoe cootie.

“Come for a round with me, my boy?” asked the big fellow, kindly.

The frail boy went and borrowed a girl friend’s clubs.

“Thirty is the best score on this links, and I’m out to beat it,” declared the big fellow, as, they limbered up on the first tee.

He smashed out a vast hooked drive that went fully sixty yards.

The slim lad gracefully whammed out a low, smooth one-hundred-and-seventy-five yard drive to the fringe of the green.

Carramba! The big fellow had al made his first false step. He had inadvertently mated up with one of the most promising young whizz-bangs of Toronto.

It was melancholy. The boy did the round in thirty-three. What the other score was nobody will ever know, for it was submerged in a great clamor of –

“I’m stale! I’m off my game! Rheumatism in my wrist! Simply awful!”

One last Item on Muskoka golf concerns a fine, old dignified gentleman. Picture him sitting on the verandah at sunset, discoursing amiably on matters that would interest the younger folk.

“A most astonishing local phenomenon has come to my attention,” says he. “I was out earlier this evening hunting for late mushrooms and puff-balls, in the selection of which I am something of an expert. I came across five, in the fields yonder, of the most remarkable specimens of the mushroom family; perfectly spherical, covered with minute embossed patterns, and solid: quite as hard as wood!”

And here the old gentleman drew from his pocket and bent his short-sighted gaze upon – five new golf balls.

And five gloomy golfers rose in the sunset and slew the old gentleman.

Editor’s Note: Some of the historic golfers mentioned here are Harry Vardon, George Lyon, and Francis Ouimet.

“The Good Old Winter Time”

by admin

On January 3, 2023

In Comic, Life's Little Comedies