By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, December 31, 1938.
Have you ever thought of driving in a sleigh to see your friends on New Year’s Day? Greg and Jim tried to get one – and look what happened!
“It seems a pity,” sighed Jimmie Frise, “that all the old-fashioned things have to be junked.”
“When I was a little boy,” I recollected, “I used to be so proud of my home as compared with my grandmother’s home. Mine was bright and vivid, the furniture was light yellow maple and oak; but Grandma’s was full of dark, dull old simple stuff called walnut.”
“Did you have a brass table in your home?” inquired Jim.
“At the parlor window,” I cried. “A brass table with curved legs and a kind of sickly greenish-yellow marble square top with a doily on it. The parlor was full of brightness. A huge red plush rocking chair, Tall buff colored urns and pitchers. One of the biggest pictures in the parlor had a beautiful snow-white frame. And another picture had a red plush frame.”
“I remember,” said Jim. “Ours was the same.”
“But Grandma’s house,” I recalled, “was so plain, so severe. Everything was walnut. It was almost bleak in her house. Every room with just a few things in it, not packed full, like ours. I used to feel sorry for Grandma living in that dim, quiet house. When she died, and all her furniture had to be divided up amongst her children, we had to take some of it, a couple of chests of drawers, a sideboard, some chairs and a tall bookcase. We hid them up in the attic.”
“Then what?” demanded Jim, knowing what was coming.
“Well,” I said, “this just goes to show what happened to old-fashioned things. One day, they suddenly threw out all the maple and the light oak and the red plush chairs, and they brought Grandma’s stuff down out of the attic. Reverently, almost. They had furniture men in to polish and shine and repair knobs. Every single item of Grandma’s simple, glorious old walnut was carried tenderly down. from the attic and we did our best to remember how it used to be placed. We tried to recapture again the severe simplicity of Grandma’s living room. We all got fighting over Grandma’s stuff, 20 years after she was gone. We tried to wheedle, buy or steal from one another the lovely colonial walnut that had been in the family a hundred years. It kicked out all the maple, oak and brass as easily as a snowplow flings aside the snow. If an old-fashioned thing has merit, Jimmie, it can never be permanently thrown away. It comes back down out of the attic.”
“I was thinking,” said Jim, “about the way we used to celebrate New Year’s Day. The way our parents and grandparents did it. You must admit that there is an old fashion that has gone with the wind.”
“I guess it has,” I submitted sadly. “It was a day of visiting.”
“We didn’t sleep in, on New Year’s Day,” declared Jim. “We got up early and got dressed in our best clothes. There was a great dinner to be prepared, but that was only incidental. The great thing was to watch out the window and see the visitors coming.”
“In sleighs,” I recalled, “with sleigh bells.”
When They Went Calling
“All the friends and relatives called,” said Jim, “and from 10 a.m. to nearly 1 p.m., there was a steady stream of visitors. The world was divided into two groups. Those who had small children stayed home New Year’s morning, to receive. And those without children as well as the elderly, did the visiting. Then, in the afternoon, after the great New Year’s banquet, your parents dressed you all up and got the cutter out and went calling in the afternoon on the middle-aged, the childless and so forth.”
“That’s absolutely right,” I agreed. “We had an old Uncle Edward. I can see him yet. He was a big old man with a mane of white hair and side whiskers down around his ears, and he wore an otter fur cap, a black greatcoat with an otter collar and frog buttons of braid across the front. He used to arrive every New Year’s morning about 11 o’clock. He came in a cutter, drawn by two horses with bells.
“He used to hire the cutter, and the coachman, in a big round bearskin hat, would leap down off the front of the cutter, which was all shining patent leather, throw back the buffalo robe, and Uncle Edward would step grandly down, with his gold-headed cane, and walk with lovely dignity up the walk and into our house. We children were shooed into the kitchen and we would peep in to see Uncle Edward sitting there, in the parlor, his hands on the gold head of the cane, talking to my father and mother and any aunts who were visiting us. He would have a glass of port wine and a piece of Christmas cake. He would stay about 15 minutes, then, with kisses all round and strong cries of Happy New Year, he would march out to his cutter, be tucked in by the coachman, and then drive jingling gloriously down the street on his round of all his friends and relatives.”
“Boy,” said Jim, mistily, “wouldn’t it be swell to rent a cutter, with two horses, and sleigh bells, and go calling on all our relatives and friends, New Year’s morning?”
“If we had snow,” I pointed out, “it would be all gone by New Year’s. Toronto has lost many old-fashioned things, but even a big snowfall is gone in a day, in this slush country.”
“I wonder if we could find a cutter in Toronto now?” asked Jimmie. “Just in case. Suppose New Year’s morning is a glorious white, sparkling day. Can you imagine anything dearer to the heart than going visiting our friends, for old times’ sake, in a cutter?”
“Jim, it’s a vain hope,” I submitted.
“Nothing is vain, if you go after it,” cried Jim, getting up and studying the phone book. “Liveries, liveries.”
But there were no liveries in the back of the phone book. And the only horses referred to were horse transport. There were slicing machines and slip covers, but no sleighs. Jim finally telephoned a friend of his who is a school teacher and he gave us the name of a man who owned sleighs for sleighing parties in the winter. We called him on the phone and he said he only had two big sleighs for school sleighing parties.
“Are there no cutters left in Toronto?” Jim asked him.
“No,” said this old-timer, “and no gas street lamps, either.”
Looking For a Cutter
“They have any number of sleighs and cutters in Montreal,” Jim accused.
“Ah, yes,” said the old-timer, “but this is Toronto. We’re up to date.”
“Yeah, up to date,” sneered Jim.
“I tell you,” said the old livery man, “there used to be a fellow I knew in off Yonge street, who had a few relics left, and one of them, if I recollect, was a cutter. He used to keep it all smeared with vaseline to preserve the patent leather.”
“That’s it, that’s it,” cried Jim.
“I haven’t seen him for five or ten years,” said the old-timer, to whom time was a little vague. “But I’ll be glad to describe how you get to where he used to be. It’s up a lane. You go in off Yonge…”
And when Jimmie hung up, he had explicit directions how to locate an ancient livery man who might have preserved, amongst his outmoded souvenirs, a cutter, a great black patent leather cutter, with sweeping fenders and spacious upholstered body, and a high seat for the cabby to sit on while he skitched at his prancing pair, loud with bells.
“It’s a sentimental journey,” said Jim, starting to clear up his desk. So, New Year’s week being a kind of dithery week anyway, we quit for the day and headed up Yonge street. Yonge street, in only a few years, has surrendered many of its antique features. Up around College St., where there used to be, until quite recently, a lot of odd little byways, and lanes, the Parliament buildings, the automotive industry and the hospitals have encroached and expanded. We followed our directions very carefully, but found, in the narrow lane to which we were directed, only the back of a big white garage.
Wandering back and forth amidst these streets that in their time had livery stables every other building, we found at last a lane that certainly appeared to lead to the past. It was dilapidated and awry. Its old board fences staggered, and there were boxes and bins of rubbish. Tracks of horses showed in the slush, and we felt that however forbidding the lane appeared, up here, if anywhere, we might find an old man treasuring an ancient cutter.
We walked rather cautiously up the lane and followed around two turns, each more uninviting than the last.
On turning a sudden corner, we came upon five men, seedy, shabby and obviously under the influence. They had a small fire built of sticks and rubbish and over it were melting a can of something, which they poured into a handkerchief and strained into a dirty bottle.
“Hi-ya,” said the first of the tramps to see us.
The others leaped up and stared at us like startled goats.
“Hi-ya,” they all said.
“Canned heat,” said Jimmie, to me. “What a bunch of cutthroats.”
“Do you men,” I asked, in the better class manner one uses with bums on their own ground, “know of an old livery stable in here?”
One of the five, with purple face and bloodshot eyes, swayed and staggered over and took me unwillingly by the lapel.
“How about two bits, Mack,” he asked thickly. “Two bits, I ain’t had a bite to eat since yesterday.”
“Get away,” I said, trying to detach my coat collar.
“Tell It to the Sergeant”
A couple of the others, impressed with the possibilities, staggered up and one took Jim by the arm and the other took me.
“Come on, Mack,” they said, “join little party. Hi-ya, boys. Little party. Contribute two bits, as all.”
I struggled but Jim gave me a smiling wink, not to resist. The better part of valor, with drunks, is certainly not dignity.
We had just reached the neighborhood of the small bonfire, when from behind us we felt, rather than heard, a crunching and thudding of feet, and around the bend came three policemen, in their greatcoats and fur caps.
The hoboes, with an alacrity that was astonishing, began running in all directions at once, like hens in a barnyard; but since the lane was a dead end, it was only a matter of a moment before the policemen had all five of them by the scruff, as little children are captured by a big brother.
And we were included.
“Stand over there,” said the oldest of the policemen, and he was only a lad.
“Pardon me,” said Jim, “we’re not in this.”
“Oh, you’re not, are you?” said the cop.
And he signalled us to stand back against the fence.
“We certainly are not,” I interrupted hotly.
“A canned heat party,” said the policeman, more to his pals than to us, “sure gathers a queer assortment.”
“Listen,” I said, firmly, “we just happened to come around that bend two minutes ago. Just ahead of you.”
“Oho, is that so?” said the policeman. “And what were you doing promenading up and down a nice little lane like this?”
“We were looking for a livery stable,” I explained.
“A what?” said the policeman, and all the others listened.
“A livery stable,” I stated firmly. “We were looking for a livery stable to see if we could rent a cutter.”
“A cutter?” said the policeman. “What kind of a cutter?”
“A cutter,” I explained, “a sleigh, the kind you go driving…”
“Higher than a kite,” interrupted the policeman, and addressing his mates, he said: “That’s what canned heat does, see? Nutty. Right off the deep end.”
“I beg your pardon, my man,” said Jim, haughtily, “you are making a very serious mistake. I tell you, we were in here looking for a sleigh to rent.”
“Sure, sure,” said the constable, taking one of the bums in one hand, taking me by the shoulder and signalling his mates to gather up the rest, including Jim. “Sure, sure, Colonel. And is it the Queen of Sheba you are taking out for a nice sleigh ride?”
“Jim,” I shouted, “are we going to submit to this?”
“Look here,” said Jim, halting, but the policeman gave his sleeve a little twitch that nearly upended him.
“Tell it to the sergeant,” said all three.
So instead of a sleigh ride, we went for a ride in the policeman’s motor car, the five bums being held at a lamp post by the other two policemen while they telephoned for the black wagon.
“Speaking of old-fashioned things,” said Jim, as we raced through the streets, “it would have been kind of choice to get a ride in the Black Maria.”
With An Eye to the Past
At the police station, we found a young policeman sitting on the high stool behind the counter. Funny how much younger policemen get as you get older. You rarely see a policeman of your own age nowadays.
“What’s this for?” he asked our escort.
“Canned heat,” said our captor.
The young fellow looked us over with amazement.
“Boy,” he breathed, “you never can tell, can you?”
“Look here, sergeant,” I shouted firmly, “we are a couple of respectable citizens who were walking in a lane…”
“Tell all about the cutter you want,” interrupted our young man, “that you’re going to take the Queen of Sheba for a ride in.”
“I tell you,” I asserted loudly and angrily, “that we were in search of a cutter, a cutter is a sort of open carriage in the form of a sleigh. My friend and I were going to see if we could rent one for an old-fashioned New Year’s Day. Do you follow me?”
“Sure, sure,” said the young fellow behind the counter.
“When we were young,” I explained, dramatically, “all our elders used to make New Year’s the occasion of visiting far and wide amongst our friends and relatives, and they drove around in cutters, with sleigh bells…”
There came a loud bump from an inner room, and out walked a tall elderly sergeant in his black badges.
“What’s this, what’s this?” he inquired kindly. “What’s all this I hear about going visiting on New Year’s Day, with cutters…?”
“These are a couple of canned heat babies,” explained our captor, “we picked up in a lane along with a bunch of the regulars who are coming in the wagon.”
The sergeant studied us narrowly. He leaned down and smelt me. He smelt Jim.
“Gentlemen,” he said, politely, “step inside. Take a chair.”
We entered the private office.
“Now what is this?” he asked, tilting back.
So we explained to him that we were just a couple of old-fashioned birds with an eye to the past, who got the idea we would like to find a sleigh, a cutter, with two spanking horses and sleigh bells, and go through the streets of Toronto….
“Why, my dear sir,” cried the sergeant, “I’ve been thinking that very same thing for years. I’ve had the boys keeping a sharp eye out for any old cutter…
So we jumped up off our chairs and sat on the edge of his desk, and I told him about my old Uncle Edward and he told about an Uncle Tod he had back in Ireland, where they rarely had any snow, and Jimmie described what his old home town looked like on New Year’s Day back in the dear olden time, and the sergeant made a pact with us that whoever found the old sleigh first would tell the other, so that we could use it turn about, in the mornings and the afternoons, year in, year out, on New Year’s Days so long as we might live.
Editor’s Notes: A cutter is a type of horse drawn sleigh. They tend to be smaller than full sized slieghs.
“…skitched at his prancing pair”. Skitching means being pulled by a horse in this context.
Canned Heat is Sterno, a brand of jellied, denatured alcohol sold in a can and meant to be burned directly in its can. In the Depression (when this was written), hoboes would squeeze canned heat through a cloth to make cheap alcohol.
A Black Maria is a police van.
This story was repeated on December 31, 1943 as “What! No Cutters?”. It’s illustration is at the end.
