Tag: Cottage Page 1 of 2

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, August 9, 1947.

“When all’s said and done, a houseboat,” said Jimmie Frise expansively, “is the ideal home for the people of this country.”

We were sitting on the stern deck, or piazza, of as nifty a little houseboat as ever was designed.

Ahead, a local launch was towing us slowly up one of the prettiest lakes in the summer resort district. We were progressing at a rate of about five miles an hour, and the shores slowly unfolded in beauty before our astern-gazing view.

“You mean summer homes,” I suggested.

“Not at all,” declared Jimmie. “I mean all-the-year-round homes! What more does the average man want than we’ve got right here in Bill Sparra’s houseboat?”

Our friend Bill Sparra, who has always scoffed at the idea of having a summer cottage stuck down on some inhospitable rock somewhere, had given us the loan of his houseboat for the week.

“Look,” said Jim, “it’s simply a cottage built on a scow. A good sturdy scow. In front, there’s a little verandah. Then, the bedrooms, with good wide windows looking ahead. Two little bedrooms, about the size of ship’s cabins, with upper and lower bunks. Next, amidships, the living room. And astern here, the combined kitchen and dining room. And out here, a lovely covered piazza, with these easy chairs.”

“It’s just about the ideal summer home,” I admitted. “Isn’t it a wonder more people don’t go in for houseboats in this country?”

“I see by the papers,” said Jim, “that an old fellow of over 70 is right now completing a canoe trip across North America, from Vancouver to New York City. Nothing I can think of illustrates better the nautical character of the North American continent.”

“It’s got several deserts,” I pointed out, “and the prairies. I wouldn’t want a houseboat in Saskatchewan.”

“For the most part,” countered Jim, “both in the east and the west, a man who owned a houseboat would probably be the most independent character in the community.”

“Think of taxes,” I suggested. “Just before the tax bill comes around, you loosen the ropes and move to another part of the country.”

“I mean,” pursued Jim, “that there are thousands of miles of connected waterways in North America – the Great Lakes, the numerous canals associated with the Great Lakes – thousands of miles of rivers – all connecting.”

“There’s portages,” I protested.

“Look: if they can ferry a railroad train across a river,” asserted Jim, “they can ferry a houseboat across a few miles of land. I tell you, we’ve got something here. Why should a man devote his entire energies and fortune into building a house in one spot? Most jobs, nowadays, aren’t fixed, as they were a few years ago. Our industrial situation has entirely altered in the past couple of decades. A man gets a job in one part of the country and keeps it two or three years. Then he gets an offer – or else sees a bigger opportunity – in another part of the country altogether. As the situation is now, the poor guy has devoted most of his earnings, in the past two or three years, to buying a little house. So, when his job gives out, or he sees an opportunity in a distant city, what happens? He has to sell his little home for less than it cost him, and he loses all the money he put into it…”

“Whereas, if he had built a houseboat…?” I agreed.

“He’d simply hire somebody,” elucidated Jim, “the way we have up front here, to tow his home off to the city of his choice.”

“It wouldn’t cost too much?” I queried.

“It’s only costing us,” scoffed Jim, “four bucks to be towed all the way up this lake. And it’s the summer tourist season, at that. No: I bet if there were large floating populations in this country, there would be reasonable competition in the houseboat-towing traffic. You’d see a floating population on the move, coming and going.”

“Think of the neighbor problem!” I enthused. “You’d have houseboat villages all over the country. And instead of trailer camp suburbs of the big cities, you would have houseboat suburbs. AND, if you didn’t like your neighbors, why, all you’d do be pull up anchor and move to a more agreeable neighborhood. Look: how about the winter?”

“Okay,” said Jim. “What about the winter? What does Bill Sparra do with this houseboat in winter? Why, he just leaves it wherever it happens to be when winter comes, and it freezes in. If you were living in it in Toronto Bay or Montreal harbor, or Fort William or any of the thousand miles of canals connecting dozens of the country’s biggest towns and cities, you’d simply let it freeze up wherever it was. And instead of having to commute 10 miles, through the winter blizzards, away out to some bungalow suburb of the city of your choice, you’d simply have to go a few blocks from the downtown business district and there would be your bungalow frozen in the ice!”

“Ah, but maybe not a very savory neighborhood!” I pointed out.

“You can move in spring!” triumphed Jimmie, “which is something you can’t do when you buy a bungalow on solid land, when you discover you’re stuck in an unsavory neighborhood. Let me tell you something: in the province of Kashmir, in India, white men aren’t allowed to own any land whatever. Either for houses or for business, no white man can own or occupy any land. So, in Kashmir – which has less connected water than this country, by a long shot – the white population lives in floating communities of houseboats. Small villages, big towns, of houseboats. They have homes, offices, shops – all afloat!”

“And they can get a change of scenery,” I remarked, “or neighbors, by simply being towed anywhere. Jim, it’s a wonderful idea.”

So we sat in our deck chairs, on the stern piazza of Bill Sparra’s travelling summer home, admiring the ever-changing view slowly passing.

When Bill offered his houseboat for the week, we decided to hire some local character to tow us north up through the chain of lakes, and, in skiffs or canoes floated wherever we happened to tie up, fish new country it had never been our good fortune to have visited. I got up and walked through the kitchen, living room and bedrooms of the little floating cottage and looked through the front windows. The launch which had us in tow was heading leisurely into the summer breeze, and I could make out the wharves and roofs of the little hamlet where we were going to moor for a couple days, as long as our fancy dictated, before pushing on. What a sense of freedom and liberation it gave to be in a portable home – portable in the sense that you transported it whole!

I hailed Jim forward and we watched while our launch slowed and brought us alongside a nice rushy point of one of the wharves of the village. We stood on the small bow deck of the houseboat and lowered the anchor.

Do you want somebody to fetch a canoe now?” our man inquired, as we paid him the $4 towing fee.

“No,” said Jim, who was captain, “just arrange for somebody to bring us a canoe at 8 AM tomorrow, please.”

Swinging on our anchor rope in the soft evening breeze, we prepared supper of steak and tomatoes, and then sat out on the cool after deck or piazza, while curious tourists and villagers came in launches and small craft to view us at close range. Jim and I returned their salutations with the casual air of men who have come a long way from the Gulf of Mexico, maybe – up the Mississippi, through the heart of the continent, past Chicago, up through the great canals: though we had, as a matter of fact, only come nine miles.

During the night, a lively breeze built up, and I was awakened by the complaining of the anchor rope and the slap of the waves on our scow hull.

Again, at dawn, I was awakened again by a slight scraping noise. The wind had fallen, and I supposed the scraping was the sound of our anchor rope rubbing against the hull.

But finally, in broad morning sunlight streaming in our windows, I was brought wide awake and out of the bunk onto my feet by a loud and commanding voice roaring:

“Hulloooo!”

“Hulloooo to you!” I replied, thinking it was the canoe fellow we had ordered for 8 AM.

“All right, all right!” the voice outside bellowed haughtily. “Come, you’ve got to get this thing out of here….!”

Jim, who was half awake, sat up sharply.

“Do you hear, in there?” continued the important voice, more loudly. “Come out here till I have a look at you!”

“The town constable?” suggested Jim.

I went out through the living room and kitchen onto the rear piazza. And an astonishing sight met my gaze. We were not beside the marshy point. We were not moored near the village. We were beached on a large curving sandy beach. Ornamental stone benches and terraces graced it. Above the beach, partly screened by cedars and other artificially planted, trees, stood a handsome and elaborate summer cottage. One of those cottages that gets five pages in “Homes and Gardens”. And there, standing on the nearest terrace, was the gentleman with the commanding voice.

“Do you know this is a private beach?” he inquired icily, when I appeared.

“We must have drifted here,” I replied weakly.

“What’s the world coming to?” the aristocrat demanded wearily. “A man can’t have any privacy anywhere, what with riffraff coming and camping on one’s private beach. This is an island, sir! An ISLAND! And there are no public conveniences or privileges on it whatever. Do you understand?”

“I say,” I repeated, in a little better voice, “we must have drifted here. We must have dragged our anchor. We have no desire whatever to intrude on your beach.”

“Very well, very, well,” commanded the gent, who must have been at least a brigadier in the home forces, “don’t stand there talking. Get it off! Get it off, immediately, before my guests rise and see this monstrosity.”

“Excuse me,” I cut in, and Jim was now at the piazza door, backing me up. “But we have no power. This is a houseboat. It has to be towed. And we have no launch.”

The gentleman tightened his jaws and glared.

“A fine thing,” he declared. “A fine thing, when rudderless, powerless individuals can come drifting about at random, invading private rights and property… I don’t know what the world is coming to.”

“Look,” said Jim, stepping forward to the piazza rail, “can you call a launch for us? Have you got a telephone? Would you be so good as to assist us off your very unpleasant beach?”

The gentleman stiffened and swung on his sandalled heel. He walked elegantly along his terraces to a large boat house. There he shouted commands until a sleepy character named Joe – probably the gentleman’s old batman in the home forces – came forth and received his instructions.

This man backed a large speedboat out of the boathouse and came slowly alongside us.

Jim and I, in the meantime, had explored and discovered that we had not merely dragged our anchor. We had lost it.

The hired man in the launch took our anchor rope and made it fast to the stern of his craft. And with hardly a scrape, we were drawn off the beach and towed free.

On shore, the gentleman, the king of his island, watched us intently. And when we were free, we waved a grateful greeting to him.

“I wonder,” said Jim, “is he anybody important, or has he just got money?”

The launch man was turned, watching to see how we towed. We shouted to him, and he turned his engine low and came aft to hear us.

“How far can you tow us?” we hailed.

“Just around the point,” he replied.

“Where to?” we bellowed.

“Just around the point,” he repeated, and went forward and speeded up his engine.

“He means to turn us adrift!” gasped Jim.

“He can’t….” I expostulated.

But that is precisely what he did.

A couple of hundred yards along the island shore was a point past which the early morning breeze was blowing.

Past this point was the wide open lake.

Sure enough, after we cleared the point, the launch man slowed down, and came aft and started to cast our rope free.

“Look,” said Jim, “won’t you tow us across to the mainland? It’s only a couple of miles. Two bucks?”

“Sorry,” said the launch man, “but I work for him. He told me what to do. I gotta do it.”

“Five bucks?” wheedled Jim.

“He’ll be watching,” said the launch man.

“What a stinker he must be!” I declared.

“Aw, no he’s not so bad,” said the launch man, “when you get to know him. He’s been worrying a lot lately about the Communists and stuff. He’s always being invaded.”

He waved and buzzed off.

And here we are, in our houseboat, really independent! Independent even of ropes, of anchors, of moorings, of the land itself. We are adrift in the largest sense of the word.

I am writing this on the dining room table. Jim is working at the cartoon on the living room table. We have hailed all craft in sight, but they just wave back. One old boy in a fishing boat passed quite close, and when we signalled frantically, he shouted back, above the racket of his engine, “sorry, boys, I’m a teetotaller!”

So we gave up trying to hail help. We have a week’s supply of pork and beans, luncheon tongue in tins, bread, two steaks and a basket of tomatoes.

The lake is about 17 miles long. The wind is light and variable. We are drifting about half a mile an hour. We have changed direction twice. If anybody comes to us, we will give them this story and cartoon to mail for us. Meanwhile, we will just enjoy houseboating at its best.

PS. – Two girls in a dinghy have just come alongside. We are giving them this to mail.

Toodle-oo!

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 11, 1942.

“If that darn supply boat doesn’t come in today,” declared Jimmie Frise, “we’re in a fix.”

“This is three days they’ve given us the go-by,” I stated.

They’ve got us at their mercy this year,” said Jim. “They know we haven’t got the gas for our boats to run up to the Landing and shop.”

“We’re out of bread at my cottage,” I announced: “We have no bacon, three eggs, one pound of butter. And no milk.”

“Everybody in the community is running short,” said Jim. “We went around last night to three or four of the neighbors to try and borrow a few things.”

“Well, it’s only six miles up to the Landing,” I reassured. “After all, we’re not in danger of starvation.”

“Twelve miles there and back,” estimated Jimmie, “is one gallon of gas. And I’ve only got 14 gallons for the whole summer.”

“It’s a wonder some of the people with big launches,” I submitted, “don’t undertake to run up to the Landing and shop for the whole community. I’ve been watching for one of them to start out, and I’m all ready to signal them.”

“If you see anybody start out,” requested Jim, “be sure and get me in on it. I want three loaves of bread, four ham steaks, about half an inch thick. Butter, eggs, bacon. Four quarts of milk. Some canned soup, some oranges…”

“You’ve got a good order there,” I admitted.

“I hinted pretty broadly to the Millers last night,” said Jim. “They’ve got that fast boat and I bet Miller has plenty of gas in his ration book for his boat.”

“He didn’t take the hint?” I inquired.

“No, he hinted back that somebody in the community with a small outboard ought to volunteer to make the trip for the gang of us,” said Jim, “because an outboard uses so little gas compared with a launch.”

“I suppose he’s right,” I muttered. “After all, the idea is to conserve gas.”

“If the supply boat doesn’t come in by 3 o’clock this afternoon,” said Jim, “I think I’ll go around and suggest to the different cottages that we draw lots to see who will run up to the Landing on a shopping expedition for the whole Point.”

“The simplest thing,” I suggested, “would be for one of us to take our boat to shore and get one of the farmers to drive us to the Landing by road.”

“It’s 18 miles by road,” countered Jim. “Thirty-six miles there and back.”

“Well, let’s wait and see,” I subsided. “Somebody is sure to break under the strain. Here’s the whole Point, all sitting watching one another, waiting to see who’ll start for the Landing first. I bet every family in the community has somebody posted to watch all the rest of the cottages.”

Two Kinds of Rowing

“I bet Mr. Cottrelle¹, the oil controller, would know the answer to this,” said Jimmie. “He’d say, ‘Row, you lazy slobs.””

“Row 12 miles?” I protested. “We’d have a heart attack.”

“We rowed 12 miles yesterday,” declared Jim. “All of it. After those three measly bass.”

“Ah, but that’s a different kind of rowing,” I pointed out. “Rowing while fishing is pleasure. Rowing for supplies is labor. I’m going to give that Loony Lake supply boat a piece of my mind when they do turn up.”

“We’ve done little else for 15 years,” sighed Jim. “They’ve got us where they want us this year. In the past, any time we felt like a little spin on the lake we’d run up to the Landing and do most of our shopping at Billy Smith’s. He’s the opposition to the Loony Lake supply boat. We never think of going into their store when we go down to the Landing. We always shop at Billy’s.”

“Well, it’s kind of nice to see some other display of merchandise, besides the same old line they’ve got in the supply boat,” I explained. “It’s a wonder Billy Smith doesn’t operate a supply boat this year, with everybody rationed like this.”

“Billy’s got too much sense,” said Jim. “There’s nothing but grief in the supply boat business. Goods spoiling, bread going mouldy, things getting bent and bust in the cramped quarters, so that they are shopworn and people won’t take them…”

“Well, they can’t neglect us like this,” I declared. “Three days and not a sign of them.”

“Maybe their engine broke,” suggested Jim. “It’s getting to be an old boat. Or maybe the boys have joined up…”

“Hey, look,” I interrupted sharply. “There’s the Millers all running down to their wharf!”

We watched the Millers. The whole family came running down the path from their cottage towards the wharf where their smart 30- footer was moored.

“Quick!” cried Jim, leaping up. And we rushed down to our own wharf, leaped into Jim’s square-stern skiff, and Jim had the pull rope on in a jiffy², and at first jerk his engine spun to life.

As we veered away from Jim’s dock, we saw people running from all the cottages, helter skelter, leaping into their skiffs, rowboats, canoes and launches, and heading for the Millers’.

And as we neared the Miller wharf, there were all the Millers sitting as easy as you please on their dock, in summery attitudes of relaxation. None of them was in their launch. None of them appeared even to be getting into the launch. There were seven boats of various kinds on the water all at the one time. Some of them pretended they just happened to be on the water and steered around the bay aimlessly. But two others besides Jimmie and me went straight to the Millers’ wharf.

“We thought you were starting out for the Landing,” Jim hailed, as we drew alongside.

“Oh, no,” said Miller, lying back on the planks. “We just thought we’d get a little sun.”

“Look,” said Jim, “if that supply boat doesn’t come by 3 o’clock, how about drawing lots among the lot of us on the Point to see who will go up to the Landing for the whole lot?”

“What’s the fuss?” demanded Miller. “The supply boat will be in all right. Don’t fret. They know we haven’t any milk, for one thing. And bread. They’re probably far more worried than we are. It’s probably engine trouble. If they can’t get here by tonight, I bet they hire some other boat and come down.”

The Other Fellow’s Boat

“Well, we’re right down to last year’s canned stuff at my cottage,” asserted Jim. “If it doesn’t come by tonight…”

“You should always keep a little emergency shelf of provisions,” said Miller easily, from his recumbent position.

“You haven’t anything to spare?” I inquired.

“I’m afraid not,” said Miller. “I can hold out until tomorrow, by which time I am sure…”

The two other boats that had drawn near the Millers’ wharf now sheered off and went slowly home. The other boats around the bay returned to their various docks.

“Well,” said Jim, with sudden resolution, “I’m not going to starve on my holidays, for one. I’m going to the Landing.”

Miller sat up.

“It would consume three times the gas in my boat,” he said. “I don’t see why some of you people with outboards don’t make the trip.”

Jim shoved off and spun the rope on the outboard. He had forgotten to shut off the gas and air and it took half a dozen yanks at the rope before it started; during which time Miller was reciting off what supplies he needed.

“Four loaves of bread, three pounds of butter, some sugar, and here’s our ration cards….”

He had them in his pocket all ready. I caught them.

“And six cans of vegetable soup, six quarts of milk, two dozen oranges, two bunches of beets, two heads of lettuce…”

Jim’s engine whammed into life.

“Okay, okay,” we yelled above the din, while Miller excitedly bellowed some further orders which we failed to hear.

A Handsome Order

Our voices had penetrated the full extent of the bay and now, once again, from all directions boats started for us. We returned to our dock, for Jim to make a list of what he required. And while he made out his list and I made out mine, nine boats arrived at Jim’s dock, all with lists already written out.

“I have the feeling,” muttered Jim, when I followed him into his boathouse to get the gas can with his two rationed gallons in it, “that the whole community was waiting for us. And they knew it would be us.”

Some of them had the money with them. Others said to shop at the Loon Lake supply boat store and charge it to their account.

And in 10 minutes we were off up the lake.

Jim’s square stern goes nine miles an hour, but it takes us the full hour to go the six miles to the Landing. This may be on account of the fact that the Landing is up the lake from our place. Probably coming down the lake the boat makes the nine miles an hour. I never checked.

It was a fine sail up the lake, with freshening breeze. We enjoyed the scenery along the shoreline, which was new to us this year, since we had not made the almost daily trips on the lake as in former years. We arrived at the Landing in five minutes less than the hour, and were welcomed very heartily by Billy Smith. In fact, after discussing the question, we decided to do all our shopping at Billy’s not merely to save time and trouble, but just to indicate, in a quiet way the whole village would understand, that the cottagers up at the Point were not to be trifled with in the matter of supply boats.

Besides, it was a very handsome order when you wrote it all down, and Billy was delighted with it. The biggest order of the season so far, he said. And it would be bound to be talked about around the Landing.

So Billy got busy with his boys and filled the cartons and wrapped the stuff up and carted it down to our skiff.

“Anyway,” said Jim, “it’s a 200-yard walk with all this stuff from the other store.”

Inquiries about the supply boat indicated that there had, indeed, been engine trouble. They had had to send all the way to Toronto for spare parts and that had been the cause of the holdup. Billy thought, from what he’d heard, that it might be another two or three days before the boat was got going.

“Why the Sam Hill,” cried Jim, “don’t they rent or borrow another boat? I’ve a good mind…”

“Aw, this will give them a lesson,” assured Billy, his arms filled with cartons, as he headed for our skiff.

“Sure, sure,” I said, “what’s the use of making a row with people you’ve got to deal with all summer…? Anyway, that wind’s getting up.”

So we shoved off, our little skiff laden with enough supplies to feed a lumber camp. Jim yanked and the engine purred and away we went.

“We won’t make nine miles an hour with all this load,” shouted Jim as we steered down the lake for home. “We’re too deep in the water.”

The engine hummed and snarled and gurgled as outboards do. It shoved us manfully, but obviously at less speed than with just the two of us in her.

About two miles down the lake, just as we got comfortable amongst all the freight, the engine began to make funny sounds. It would go slow, then fast. Jimmie began fiddling anxiously with the gadgets, the timing handle and the little gas jigger.

“Leave it alone,” I warned shoutingly.

But in true outboard driver fashion, Jim continued to fiddle, while the engine got steadily worse. It nearly died. Then it started up with a roar. Then it died completely.

“Just a minute,” said Jim, kneeling up over it.

But it was not a minute. It was 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour. I had to take the oars and row, to keep us from drifting out right across the lake.

“I wish we’d brought some canvas or something to cover this stuff,” said Jim during one of his rests from yanking the rope. “It’s going to get splashed.”

The wind was really frisky.

Jim yanked, yanked, yanked. He cussed, got red, got white, got weary. I took a few yanks, but they lacked even Jim’s limited authority over the silly engine. Nothing looks sillier than an outboard that won’t respond. Jim took out the spark-plugs and cleaned them. He drained the carbureter and took the screen out…

The little screen slipped from his, fingers and fell into the lake.

“That cooks it,” he said. “Now we HAVE to row.”

We had drifted about half a mile, which made it four and a half miles down the lake we had to row. Jim took the bow oar and I the stern, in separate seats, so as to balance the skiff a little head-down into the wind.

We rowed cheerfully at first. Then not so cheerfully. Rowing is not one of the better sports, when you have to do it. As pleasure, it is exhilarating. It stretches your muscles, expands your back, makes you feel wide and deep inside. But as work it has nothing to redeem it.

Besides, after the first half hour, in which we seemed to be still opposite the same boathouses we had started in front of, we began to lose our timing…

“It’s your job,” I informed Jim hotly, after we had got into still another series of chopping strokes with Jim half a stroke behind me; “it’s your job, as bow oar, to match your stroke to mine.”

“How can I take little, stubby jabs like you’re taking?” retorted Jimmie angrily.

It Wasn’t Much Fun

So it wasn’t much fun, and the hour and a half we took to reach the Point was as long a one as I recall. The wind, especially after we rounded the Point for the stretch, was lively and the waves splashed spray all over our supplies. We stopped frequently to shift things around so that the bread, sugar, fancy biscuits, and so forth were protected from the spray. But it seeped down anyway.

“I hope our kind neighbors,” I said over my shoulder, “will appreciate this little service we’re doing them.”

“Let’s not hurry along here,” replied Jim. “Let’s take our time so they can see us.”

“They’ll all be watching for us, anxiously,” I agreed. “So let’s make them appreciate the fact that this has been no picnic.”

We labored, therefore, a little harder at the oars. We sagged in our seats, humped our backs, dug the oars deep and leaned far back on the pull. We got into several mix-ups as to timing, because nothing gives the impression of desperate struggle so much as two men floundering around with their oars.

“I bet Miller is feeling his neck³,” I said. “Sitting there on his veranda, with that fast little power boat tied to the wharf. He could have made this trip in fifteen minutes.”

“Well, we have one satisfaction,” declared Jimmie. “Our reputation as public-spirited citizens can’t be challenged after this.”

And then we heard a familiar toot from a boat klaxon and there, steaming out from the bay, was the Loony Lake supply boat, as large as life.

“They’ve been in to the Point,” I cried.

So now we rowed a little harder. And the cargo seemed suddenly to grow heavier. Especially all those items for which we had paid our cash instead of charging at the other store at the Landing.

The end of the story is briefly told. Everybody, including our families, had stocked up. Not even our families had made any allowance for what we had been asked to bring.

Why,” said Miller, “I took it for granted you’d see the boat passing on your way up.”

“It must have been in at some cottage,” was all we could reply.

Miller was willing to take the oranges, the canned goods and even the beets and lettuce, but he said the bread, sugar and other things were of no use to him in their wet condition.

“They’re ruined,” he said. “Why didn’t you take a canvas to cover them?”

All the others were the same way.

“After all,” they said, “you could hardly expect us to take bread saturated with water and soggy boxes of fancy biscuits…”

So in Jim’s boathouse we figured out the loss. And we were about $4⁴ out, counting our own stuff that our wives wouldn’t take.

“Some men are so impatient,” our wives explained. “They ought to know the supply boat will be in sooner or later.”

So the gulls got it. And Jim and I went back to High Rock, back of my place, where we have two cedar chairs; and we watched the stars come out and talked about how essentially heartless humanity is.

Editor’s Notes:

1. George Cottrelle was a banker by profession and was appointed Oil Controller for Canada on June 29, 1940 by the wartime government. Note there was gasoline rationing at the time, hence the concern over being careful with their allotment. ↩︎
2. On old outboard motors, the pull rope was separate and had to be wound on for each pull. ↩︎
3. “Feeling your neck” would mean “being anxious”. ↩︎
4. $4 in 1942 would be $73 in 2024. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, June 22, 1946.

“Let’s see,” reflected Jimmie Frise, “there’s the canoe…”

“And my mattress,” I reminded.

“And the boy’s bicycle,” listed Jim. “And what else?”

“Just a few cartons,” I submitted, “that will easily go in the back seat and the luggage, compartment.”

“It seems to me,” said Jim, “we used to take more junk than that on our first trip to the cottage.”

“We did,” I agreed. “But over the years, we’ve taken so much junk up to the cottage, there isn’t much more room left. Besides, we don’t have to transport as much supplies as we used to. Civilization is thrusting its ugly nose farther and farther into the summer resort country, so that now we’ve got good stores within a couple of miles of us.”

“It’s getting too tame,” declared Jim. “What is a summer cottage for? It is to escape from civilization. It is to get away into the unspoiled wilderness. And then comes civilization sneaking up on us…”

“Don’t forget, mister,” I protested, “how we welcomed the good roads when they came. Don’t forget, we bought the first outboard engines on our lake.”

“I suppose,” sighed Jim.

“First.” I explained, “we go and seek out a wilderness spot for our summer cottage. Next, we start agitating for the electric power to be brought out to us, so we can have an electric refrigerator.”

“The first instinct in a man, the minute he gets a little money,” reasoned Jim, “is to escape from civilization. So he sets up a wildness cabin. The next instinct is to convert the cabin into as civilized an establishment as can be managed. I wouldn’t be surprised if men unconsciously set up a cabin in the wilds for no other reason than to experience the thrill of conquering the wilds and turning the wilderness cabin into a city bungalow as fast as possible.”

“Ah, the insatiable pride of man!” I bemoaned.

“At first,” ventured Jim, “I don’t believe I wanted comforts and conveniences at the cottage. If I recollect, I gloried in its primitive qualities. I used to boast how hard it was to get in to it. We used to have to travel all day, in the Muskoka train. Then we had to sleep overnight in a little country hotel, and catch the boat early the next morning.”

“And you had to take supplies,” I pointed out, “to last most of the time you were planning to stay.”

“It was an adventure,” declared Jim, “a journey and a voyage. To get into our cabin in the wilds was something to plan for and dream about for 10 months of the year. Then the cabin: it was primitive, we used candles and later oil lamps. The wilderness came right down to our back door, full of mystery, menace, silence. Today, back of the cottage that is built on the site of that cabin, a great highway runs. And all day and all night, it roars with the traffic of the summer resort business.”

“Of course,” I pointed out, “there are young fellows now, like us when we were starting out, who are experiencing the same thing away back on the outer fringe of the wilderness. The summer resort area grows just the same way as a city grows.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” remarked Jim. “In a city,” I explained, “when the young people grow up, they move out to the fringes of the city, to the new residential suburbs. They leave the old, shabby district they were born and brought up in. Then they, too, grow old, their families grow up, the new residential district has become old and shabby. And the young folk move on out to the new fringes.”

“It’s the same with summer resorts,” admitted Jim.

Comfort and Security

“Some young people, of the tamer sort,” I elucidated, “the kind who go for dancing and juke-boxes and sailing dinghies, remain in the old summer resorts of their fathers. But the more strenuous, imaginative and vigorous young people – like us when we were young, eh? – hanker to escape from all that sissy stuff. And they push on to the fringes, to the ever-vanishing edge of civilization. All over Canada, young people are hacking cabins out of the real wilds, the way we did when we were young.”

“I suppose,” ruminated Jimmie, “what we think of as our summer homes are really only suburban homes after all.”

“It can’t be helped, Jim,” I reminded. “Civilization is like that. What is civilization but comfort? The desire for comfort is what rules us all. Comfort and security. When we are young, we have a natural desire to escape from the comfort and security of civilization, so we build a cabin in the wilds. But shortly after we have done so, we decide that mosquitoes are a pest, so we install screens. Next, we find it a little troublesome to row down to the steamer dock for the mail, so we buy an outboard engine. The end is, we join committees of other cottagers in the district and start an agitation for the electric power lines to be extended out our way. And we have electric refrigerators, and a motor highway passing right back of the cabin. We wanted comfort. We got civilization. In our old age, the thing we ran away from has got us back in its embrace.”

“Hmmmm,” reflected Jim.

“There is something in us all,” I submitted “that yearns for the primitive and the untamed. In the healthiest of us, it expresses itself in this ceaseless pushing back of the frontiers, the building of summer cabins on a still farther lake. In the less vigorous of us, it expresses itself in this polite formality, of ‘going away for the summer’. And even the pudgy old ladies of the best families have to go where there is some pretence of wilderness. At least some pines. Yet the end is always the same. Comfort and security destroy the thing we love and yearn for.”

“Are you opposed to comfort and security?” inquired Jim darkly.

“No. But what is going to happen.” I demanded “when civilization is complete? When the last wild place has hot dog stands and juke boxes in it? When there isn’t any place left on earth where you can’t go by motor or by comfortable cabin plane? What’s going to happen to that deep instinct in us all to escape from civilization?”

“We should worry,” smiled Jim. “It will be a long time before that happens: by which time maybe human nature will have changed, and we won’t yearn for the wild and untamed.”

“Look, Jim,” I said sharply. “At this very minute parties of American tourists are fishing and camping all over the Arctic edge of Canada. They’ve flown in. In big private planes.”

“Well, there’s the Matto Grosso¹,” dodged Jim, “the impenetrable wilderness of Brazil -“

“Full of tourists,” I assured him.

“Well, there’s Baffin Land²,” evaded Jim.

“Aircraft, yachts, all over the place,” I assured him. “Jim, we are in the midst of one of the greatest revolutions in history and we don’t realize it. People are going all over the world, into the most impenetrable regions – for fun!”

“More power to them,” said Jin, airily.

Everyone Seeking Escape

“Look!” I insisted. “A Chicago broker flies up to Ellesmere Island in the Arctic for 10 days camping and fishing for Arctic char. He does it in less time and with less discomfort than his grandfather, also a Chicago broker, travelled by train and boat to Muskoka.”

“More than that,” corrected Jim. “He flies to the Arctic in less time than it takes you and me to motor to the top end of Algonquin Park.”

“All right!” I cried. “Don’t you realize what this is going to do to humanity in the next few years? There isn’t going to be any escape left. There isn’t going to be any place left to escape TO!”

“I’m getting tired,” Jim said icily, “of this ESCAPE business! Escape literature. Escape movies. It’s time the whole world stood still and faced the facts of this world, instead of scattering in all directions madly to escape – like ants when you lift a rotten log and let the day light in.”

“But if you have no escape…” I began.

“Except for a few carefully censored newsreels,” declared Jim, “all the movies are escape movies. Except for a few brief commentators, the whole of radio is escape radio – comedy, drama. Except for the newspapers, cautiously measuring out the amount of grim fact the public can take without gagging – the whole of the printed word, pouring like hail upon the earth, is escape literature. Unreal, romantic, visionary, out of this world.”

“The idealistic…” I tried to butt in.

“The whole world,” cried Jimmie, “rushing into movies, crouching in front of radios, buried in books and magazines, trying to escape the terrible facts of this world, by every hook and crook that can be devised.”

“But surely,” I protested, “after a long and horrifying war, we are entitled to a little escape…”

“Not,” declared Jim, “while the greater part of the world is facing utterly inescapable tragedy. We here in North America escaped the war in a sense that Britain, Europe and Asia didn’t. We still want to escape! What’s the matter with us?”

“It’s human,” I stated, “to want to escape.”

“It’s human,” cut in Jimmie, “to want to be comfortable, to be secure: so that’s civilization. It’s human to want to escape. And what’s that?”

“Civilization too.” I admitted heavily.

“Britain, Germany, Russia and Italy didn’t escape the war,” pursued Jim, “and now they can’t escape the consequences of the war – famine and political ruin. And while they’re busy with that we are busy still escaping.”

“Wouldn’t the people of Europe escape if they could?” I demanded.

“Er…” said Jim:

“Would they face the terrible facts,” I gripped, “if they didn’t have to?”

“I guess the ruin that fell on Europe,” reasoned Jimmie, “was the result of everybody so busy escaping from reality that they let a gang of lugs, in all countries, muddle them into a terrible war. What’s going to happen to us, then, do you suppose, escaping we’re doing as the result, of all the now?”

“Nothing HAS to happen,” I pleaded.

“Something always happens,” asserted Jim, “to escapists. We want comfort. We want security. We want to escape.”

“Escape what?” I demanded, suddenly irritated.

“Escape our responsibility,” shot Jim, “for our share of the cost of OUR comfort and OUR security.”

“We went to war…” I cried hotly.

“War never in history did anything,” said Jimmie, “but destroy the security of one people and temporarily bolster up the comfort of another.”

“Temporarily?” I scoffed. “We British have been pretty comfortable for a good many centuries!

“But uneasy,” smiled Jimmie, “at last!”

“We’re not uneasy!” I snorted.

“No?” inquired Jim softly.

But No Canoe

“The canoe,” I reverted suddenly, picking up Jim’s list. “The canoe, my mattress. the boy’s bike…”

“What do you want with that mattress?” asked Jim.

“My old mattress,” I explained, “has been up at the cottage for 20 years. Mice have nested in it. It is full of lumps.”

“Comfort, comfort,” sighed Jim. “Always thinking of your comfort. That old mattress was good enough for you in the old days. when wilderness surrounded the cottage…”

“The new one will make a nice soft pad for the canoe, on top of your car,” I pointed out very willy.

“Oh, yeah,” agreed Jim promptly. “Okay. We’ll load the car tonight over at your place, and be ready to leave at 9 in the morning, eh?”

Loading the car was easy for old hands like Jim and me. We have loaded summer baggage on cars now for so many years we know all the tricks. We have learned the best way to secure the canoe on top. For years, we used haphazard knots. But then, about 1930, I read an article about how cowboys lash the packs on pack horses. Diamond hitches, double diamond hitches, the miner’s hitch, the lone packer or Basco hitch. These hitches made a science of fastening luggage on a car and there isn’t a Boy Scout in the country who can tie a double diamond the way Jim and I can.

My nice fat mattress was just like a bucking broncho. And the canoe on top was like a kayak or saddle bag of ungainly proportions. But we cinched it up snug, completed the double diamond and Jim slowly drove away with the load, all ready for the morning.

The family went on in my open touring job. Jim tooted shortly after 9, and we loaded the few cartons of odds and ends for the cottage. Nowadays, we don’t even take a lunch. There are any number of lunch place, all the way up the highway.

We drove across the city to hit Yonge St., and at one of those main intersections they had one of these new traffic policemen on duty whose job is to hustle traffic up. He carries a whistle, and waves his arms at you to come on, come on! Make it snappy!

I do not blame Jimmie for what happened. I will even pay my half of a new canoe. I can sew the mattress up myself.

As we neared the intersection, the policeman was blowing his whistle and waving us on imperiously. As if we were a couple of old fogeys. Jim stepped on the gas; at which minute, the lights changed.

Well; whom do you obey? A young policeman with a whistle? Or the red light? To us old-timers, trained for years on those red lights, there can be no question as to which we will obey.

Jim tramped on the brakes, despite the whistles and gesticulations. The sudden jolt jerked our diamond hitch, beautiful as it was, into mere empty space. The canoe slid off, right under the wheels of a great big trailer lorry, whose screeching brakes we heard all in the same instant in which we heard a splintering and crushing sound, as of giant egg shells.

The mattress, of course, did its best. I know it tried to defend the canoe against the monstrous truck. It got full of splinters.

There was quite a traffic tie-up for a while, but we got all the pieces swept off the street, and this time, we tied the mattress on with what is called a bucking hitch – used by cowboys and Boy Scouts for tying things on bucking horses.

And we got to the cottage all right.

But no canoe.

Editor’s Notes:

1. Mato Grosso is a state in Brazil which means “Thick Bush”. ↩︎
2. Baffin Land was the former name for Baffin Island. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, July 12, 1947.

“Get his number!” yelled Jimmie Frise from amid the dust cloud.

“Got it!” I replied grimly, picking myself up out of the roadside ditch.

We stood glaring after the vanishing car.

“A lunatic,” declared Jim. “Nothing but a lunatic.”

Here we were, a couple of decent, law-abiding citizens, in summer negligee, leisurely strolling along the gravel road which, behind Jim’s cottage, serves the whole summer resort.

And at 50 to 60 miles an hour, on that winding, twisting gravel road, a big new car, in two tones of gray, had come roaring along and blown its horn almost under the tails of our sports shirts.

“That’s the third time in two days,” I announced, “that the same crazy guy has hooted us off the road. He’s going to kill somebody yet.”

“Get his number down,” commanded Jim.

“It’s 41728,” I stated, putting it down on an envelope from my pocket. “But I know the fellow. He’s a broker,” name of Doug McArony…”

“You wouldn’t think a guy of Scottish descent,” said Jim, “would be so reckless. How old is he?”

“He’s our age,” I supplied. “Maybe he hasn’t had a new car for four or five years. Maybe it’s gone to his head.”

“Look, definitely,” declared Jim, “we’ve got to do something about that lunatic. Everybody in the district is complaining about him. He’s done nothing for the past week but race back and forth on this winding road at breakneck speed.”

“There’s one at every summer resort,” I submitted. “This is what you get for buying a cottage that can be got to by road. Now, up at my place, it’s 16 miles by boat from the nearest road.”

“If they aren’t racing in cars,” interrupted Jim, “they’re racing in fast motor boats, kicking up swells, upsetting canoes and rowboats and banging all the craft in the lake up against wharves.”

“There ought to be a speed limit of five miles an hour,” I offered, “at all summer resorts. The minute you introduce speed into a summer resort, all you’ve got is a suburb of the city.”

“What are we going to do about this guy McArony?” demanded Jimmie, as we resumed our stroll. “Will we go and call a meeting of the cottagers and frame a protest?”

“I’ve got a better scheme,” I stated.

“The best thing,” said Jim, “would be to go and see the guy and tell him about the way he practically booted us off the road just now. Tell him that there is a general resentment all along the shore, about the speed at which he drives. Tell him he’s going to kill some little kid one of these fine days.”

“These fast drivers can’t be talked to,” I informed him. “They just grin at you pityingly.”

“Okay,” said Jim, “let’s go and see him, and tell him that if we see him driving fast any more, we’re going around to call on him and simply punch the stuffing out of him.”

“Aw, you can’t do that, Jim,” I scoffed. “That’s taking the law into your own hands.”

“Well, there’s a law against speeding,” argued Jim, “which he ignores. There are the laws of decency and common sense, which he flouts. Very well. There is one little fact which those who break the law don’t seem to think of. And that is, that others may break the law too.”

“He’s quite a hefty specimen,” I advised.

“In that case,” said Jim, “we’ll just go along the road and recruit a little committee of those who are sore at him. And we’ll select good big men. Then we’ll call on him and tell him that, as a committee, we demand that he reduce speed to 25 miles an hour on this road. And if he doesn’t – we’ll all come and punch his nose.”

“That’s lynch law, Jim!” I protested.

“Okay,” said Jim, blandly, “how do you suggest we make this character slow down?”

“It’s very simple,” I announced. “Down at the cross roads, where this road meets the main highway, there’s a gas station. The speed cop, who controls this part of the country stops at that gas station every day. We’ll go down there and wait for him. And we’ll explain the situation to him. We’ll inform him the whole district is up in arms but doesn’t know what to do. We’ll give the cop this guy McArony’s description, licence number and so forth. It stands to reason if McArony drives the way he does on the back roads, he’ll drive like a maniac on the good roads.”

“It may be weeks before the cop happens to catch him,” protested Jim.

“I bet,” I stated, “that the speed cop, in view of a public protest like this, will lay for him.”

“It might work,” grumbled Jim. “But we’ve got to drive home ourselves, tonight. And I don’t want to waste any of what little time we’ve got up here hanging around a gas station, waiting for a speed cop to turn up.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ve got a better idea. We’ll write a note to the speed cop and leave it at the gas station as we pass by tonight on our way home.”

“There’s an idea,” applauded Jimmie.

And he had hardly got the words out of his mouth before we heard a low humming sound ahead of us, and around the turn of the road came the very same two-tone great big beautiful car, racing like fury.

Jimmie and I leaped for the opposite ditches, waving our fists. But with a loud, derisive blast of the horn and amid a cloud of flying gravel and dust, McArony swept cheerily by, his elbow out the window.

As we came out of the ditches, dusting ourselves off, Jimmie and I faced each other with a great resolve glittering in our eyes.

“I,” I enunciated, “am going to write that note to the speed cop NOW! And before lunch, we’re going to drive down to the gas station at the highway and leave it.”

“The sooner this guy McArony is pulled up,” agreed Jim, “the better.”

So we about-turned and strode back to Jim’s cottage where we got paper and pen and set down the following document:

“That says it all,” I announced, after reading it off to Jim.

We got immediately in the car and drove out to Dunc’s gas station, 12 miles to the highway. Dunc said he expected the speed cop within the hour, and he promised to give him the letter, which we marked Confidential.”

We got back in time for lunch. And after lunch, as is our custom, we lay down for an hour’s snooze under the balsams, amid the soft July breezes.

It was a quarter to four when I felt Jimmie shaking me.

“Time for a swim,” he said, “before we push off.”

“Where’s the car?” I inquired, sitting up.

“The kids drove it to the village for some watermelon,” said Jim.

“Gosh, Jim, the village! That’s 16 miles,” I complained. “I hope they get back in good time. I like leaving here not later than five.”

“They’ll be back,” soothed Jim. “Come and get your trunks on.”

“Anything I hate,” I muttered, “is driving in Sunday night traffic in the dark.”

“They’ll be back any minute,” assured Jim.

We had a good swim. At four-thirty we came out and dressed and packed our grips. At a quarter to five, no sign of the car or the kids.

“Jim, I wish you hadn’t let them have the car,” I fretted.

“They’ll be along any minute,” said Jim, “Let’s have a cup of tea.”

So we had a cup of tea. And by the time that was done, it was a quarter past five, and no sign of the kids.

“I hate this,” I groaned. “By the time we get 30 miles from the city tonight, traffic will be barely crawling.”

“What’s a few minutes one way or the other?” smoothed Jimmie. “They’ll be along any minute. You know kids.”

But at five-thirty no kids. And along the beach came the bellboy from the summer hotel half a mile up the road. He was on his bicycle, peering in at the cottages as he passed. When he saw Jim and me on the verandah, he dismounted.

“Mr. Frise?”

“Yes?”

“Oh,” said the bellboy, “we got a telephone message. Your car has broken down. The clutch. They had it towed back to the village. It can’t be fixed until tomorrow and they wanted to know if you could get somebody around here to go and pick them up.”

I was on my feet in consternation, looking at my watch.

“Jim,” I grated, “we’ve got to be in town first thing in the morning!”

“Easy, now,” suggested Jim, giving the bellboy a quarter. “Easy, now. We can catch the six-twenty from Bracebridge if we can get somebody to drive us.”

“Bracebridge,” I snorted, “is 28 miles.”

“We’ve got nearly three-quarters of an hour,” pointed out Jim, picking up his hat.

“See if the Higgins’s are in,” I cried, “and I’ll go this other way and see who’s home to drive us.”

I dashed down the steps and ran west, looking at the Wintermeyers, the McDonalds, the Millers… but not one of them was home, no car beside the cottage, nobody on the verandahs… I turned and raced back, hoping Jim had done better.

But as I came in sight of Jim’s, there was Jimmie hastening back from the other direction.

He waved: “Nobody home!”

“What’ll we do?” I shouted. “Jim, we’ve simple got to be home first thing in the morning!”

“Take your grip,” commanded Jim, as we collided at the front steps. “We’ll go down to the gravel road and hitch-hike to Bracebridge.”

“There’s no chance…” I moaned.

“Otherwise,” said Jim, “if we miss the six-twenty, we’ll get a lift out to the highway and see if we can hitch-hike to the city.”

“Oh, of all the dreadful…” I groaned. “Hang those kids!”

With our bags, we hastened out the back and down the lane to the gravel road.

We took up our stance,

In the distance rose a low, powerful hum.

Around the bend of the road came a long, low two-tone job in gray.

Yes, it was McArony.

In a cloud of dust, he pulled up before us and swung a door wide.

“Want a lift?” he called.

“We have to catch the six-twenty at Bracebridge,” said Jim lamely.

I hesitated to get in. But Jim boosted me.

The door slammed.

“Six-twenty, eh?” said McArony, glancing at the clock on his glittering instrument panel. “I don’t know whether we can make it or not, but we’ll try!”

And I felt the long, low monster beneath me surge into lithe motion.

Trees whizzed by. Sickeningly, we raced up to corners and turns. I nudged Jim’s back – he was up in front beside McArony. But Jim ignored me. He was telling McArony about our car and how the kids were marooned at the village.

“I’ll pick them up, after I let you off at Bracebridge,” said McArony.

“Aw, no,” protested Jim. “It’s in the opposite direction.”

“No trouble at all,” sang McArony. “I just love driving this new job. Haven’t had a new car in six years. It’s just heaven to drive this car. Don’t you think so? Isn’t she smooth?”

“These turns…” I piped from the back seat.

“Oh, don’t worry,” laughed McArony, turning his head to smile at me, though we were going 60, “I can handle her.”

And then ahead, we saw a motorcycle parked against a birch tree. In front of it, the speed cop was standing forth on the side of the road with his arm raised.

McArony braked hard amid a vast cloud of dust.

“Oh, oh! Sorry,” he said. “I guess you miss your train now.”

We drew up level with the cop.

He walked around the back, looked at the licence and then came around to McArony’s window, drawing a paper from his breast pocket.

“Well, well, well!” said the constable. “What a coincidence! Not an hour ago, I get a letter from the citizens of this district complaining about you, mister. What’s the name?”

“McArony,” said our friend. “Douglas McArony.”

“The same,” said the cop, glancing at the letter. And then, word for word, he started to read our letter, while McArony listened and Jim and I started to shrink and shrink.

He reached the “yours truly,” and stopped!

“Who wrote that nonsense?” demanded McArony.

“It’s marked ‘Confidential’,” said the cop. “Anyway, I don’t need any more confirmation than what I saw just now. You coming along this winding road at a good 60 miles an hour.”

“These two friends of mine,” said McArony, “have to catch the six-twenty at Bracebridge. A matter of life and death.”

The cop glanced in at us.

“We must,” I agreed. “We… we simply MUST…!” He looked at his wrist watch.

“You’ll hardly make it,” he said. “Now, look here, Mr. McArony or whatever your name is: I want to give you fair warning…”

“Constable,” said McArony, “I never go at any excessive speed on this road. Do you think I’m crazy? On these turns? Do I want to break my neck? Do I want to wreck a beautiful job like this?”

“I don’t like getting complaints like this,” said the constable, waving our letter,

“Aw, some peevish old women, probably,’ said McArony.

“That’s what I thought myself,” agreed the cop.

And McArony got us the six-twenty, with one minute to spare.

Editor’s Notes: “In summer negligee” is an old term where negligee means “carelessly informal or incomplete attire”.

They also both use the slang term “grip” for a suitcase.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, August 18, 1945.

“Haaaalp!”

It was Jimmie Frise’s voice coming from the back of the cottage.

“Halp!” he bellowed. “It’s a rattler! Come quick!”

The cottage thudded with footsteps flying from all directions.

By the time I got there, Jim was braced against a clothes prop, which he had wedged into a grassy crevice beside the wood pile.

“Got him, I think,” panted Jim. “Somebody get a paddle and poke in around the end of the clothes prop.”

Which I did. Cautiously, I poked and parted the grass. There was no warning buzz.

“You’ve missed him, Jim,” I announced. “There’s nothing at the end of the clothes prop.”

Jim carefully withdrew the prop. We all listened. There was no sound of any kind except Jim’s breathing.

“Are you sure it was a rattler?” I inquired. “Some of these rock grasshoppers make a…”

“Doggone!” cried Jim. “I saw him. I nearly stepped on him. He was about four feet long.”

“Rattlers don’t grow that long up here, Jim,” I submitted. “Thirty inches is a whopper. I bet it was a fox snake you saw.”

“Does a fox snake,” inquired Jim bitterly, “make a noise like a buzz saw?”

“No, and neither does a rattler,” I retorted. “It makes a dry, buzzing sound, a sharp, unmistakable buzzing, with a sort of dry leaf quality…”

“Aw, this was a rattler,” cried Jim. “Everybody stand back and watch your step. I was just going to pick an armful of wood for the stove and there he was a great big chocolate brown brute, crawling up that crevice. The minute he saw me, he sort of drew himself together and started to rattle. I’ve seen lots of them. I know a rattler when I see him.”

“A fox snake,” I stated, “has a trick of vibrating the tip of his tail in the hope that he’ll be mistaken for a rattler.”

“I tell you this was a rattler, and a big one,” asserted Jim angrily. “I know a fox snake. He’s slim and bright colored. This was a fat snake, dark chocolate brown…”

“Coffee-grounds color,” I suggested.

“Darker,” said Jim. “I grabbed the clothes prop and by the time I got back, he was just heading into the wood pile at that crevice. I thought I had him pinned.”

“If you’d pinned him,” I said, “We all could have heard him rattling even inside the house.”

“Okay, if he’s in the wood pile,” said Jim, rolling up his sleeves, “Let’s get him. We can rout him out.”

And Jim started poking the prop in amidst the piled wood.

We took up various vantage points while Jim poked and poked amongst the billets. After a few moments, I took the paddle and, standing well clear, jabbed and banged.

“If there was a rattler in there,” I ventured, “We’d have heard from him by now.”

“Well, there’s a rattler in there,” asserted Jim hotly.

Taking No Chances

We took a few more exploratory pokes. We stood back and listened. And then, to express my convictions, I stepped up and picked an armful of wood. Cautiously, I will admit. And picking each stick with my finger tips, as it were. And keeping myself on springs, ready to jump, if necessary.

Jim threw the clothes prop away petulantly.

“Okay,” he said. “If you want to be a fool.”

“Aw, Jim,” I said, “You exaggerate rattlers. Their bite isn’t much worse than a few bee stings.”

And I carried the armful of wood into the kitchen wood-box with that debonair quality which is, I suppose, the most irritating of all human poses. We regathered on the cottage veranda and I lit up my pipe and set myself for a lecture on the natural history of rattlers.

“This rattler we have up on the Georgian Bay,” I propounded, “is called the Massasauga by the scientists. It’s the same one that used to abound around the Niagara gorge and up in the Bruce peninsula. It’s nothing whatever like the big diamond back rattler of Texas and the southern states. That’s a huge snake, with enough venom to kill a man in a few minutes. But our little rattler is a lethargic, fat little reptile that ordinarily runs around 20 to 24 inches. A 30-incher is a whopper.”

“They’re mighty dangerous creatures,” declared Jim, rolling down his sleeves, and glancing sideways off the veranda towards the wood pile.

“Personally,” I said, “I’ve never known of anybody dying from the bite of one of our little Massasaugas…”

“Aw,” snorted Jim, angrily. “Our little Massasaugas!”

And he mimicked me rather wickedly, sort of blowing himself up.

“It stands to reason,” I continued. “Nature doesn’t overdo anything. This little snake eats mice and frogs as its largest prey. So nature equips it with enough venom to knock out these small creatures. If a larger creature gets bitten, all it does is swell up and get numb for a while.”

“I don’t like being numb,” muttered Jim, “Even for a couple of minutes.”

“When I was a young guy up here,” I pursued, “I saw an Indian girl who had been bitten on the thigh while kneeling in a blueberry patch, picking berries. She got a good fair puncture, by two fangs, right in the fat of the thigh. She was pretty sick. Her leg swelled. The poison seemed to have a nerve-shattering effect, either that or the thought of being bitten by the snake. For she was simply a quaking jelly of fright and nerve collapse.

“Boy, just the sight of a rattler gives me the quakes,” said Jim, getting up and standing at the far end of the veranda to look at the wood pile.

“It also affected her breathing, or her heart,” I continued. “Because she had difficulty breathing. And it ached terribly.”

“Well, did she die?” demanded Jim.

“No, we got her out to a doctor who had a cottage near here,” I said, “It was too late to open the wound to bleed. He gave her sedatives. And after a couple of days, the swelling went down. And she was okay.”

“I bet she never picked another berry,” muttered Jim.

Just Kicked Them Aside

“I saw her for years afterwards, I countered. “She was the best berry-picker of all the tribe. And as for rattlesnakes, she said she just kicked them aside whenever she encountered them. She said having a child was 10 times worse than a rattlesnake bite.”

“Do you know of any other cases?” asked Jim.

“I once interviewed a railroad man,” I said, “who was bitten on the wrist while picking berries along the tracks one day when the freight train was sided. He suffered agonizing pain, his arm swelled up like a stove pipe, he went through all the nerve agony and smothering feeling the Indian girl described.”

“Yet,” cried Jim, “you think it a small matter that there is a rattler in our wood pile right outside the door!”

“George Hebden Corsan,” I recounted, “the naturalist and health expert, was bitten by a copperhead down in the States when he was a young man. And he recovered. And he credits the snake venom with giving him the tremendous heart and wonderful stamina he has enjoyed all his life…”

To hear you talk,” declared Jim, “you’d think you would encourage rattlers around here.”

“Well, in a sense I do,” I pondered. “After all, we can’t let blind prejudice rule us. The rattler is the greatest mousetrap in the world. A rattler will hang around a mouse nest until he has trapped and eaten every mouse in the place. He is a lazy snake. He doesn’t have to hustle out of any enemy’s way. He just waddles through life heavy and fat, and lets go his warning whenever any danger threatens. He finds a good mouse territory and stays right there.”

“We have a plague of mice this year,” ruminated Jim.

“I’ve never seen so many mice around the cottage as this year,” I agreed. “Probably because we have killed all the rattlers within miles of us. We have upset nature’s balance. I bet that woodpile has a dozen mouse nests in it.”

“So we ought to encourage that big black rattler,” snorted Jimmie. “And put saucers of milk out for him at nights!”

“A rattler,” I said, “can do no harm unless you interfere with him. He minds his own business. Which is catching mice. He gives everybody fair warning. Not many other dangerous creatures do that. He is equipped with dangerous poison. So nature also equips him with a warning signal. It turns after due consideration, that the rattler is one of nature’s better ideas.”

“What a mind!” breathed Jimmie.

“We can have our choice,” I said “between a nice respectable rattler which does us no harm in the ordinary course. Or mice, which do nothing but harm in the ordinary course. Mice can ruin our cottage. They can get into the mattresses and the bedding. They can stink out the joint. They can do maybe a hundred or two hundred cash dollars’ worth of damage in one season. Yet, because of an ancient prejudice in the human mind, we persecute the creature whose business in life is to save us hundreds of dollars a year!”

“I never heard such reasoning,” bit Jim.

“It’s the same in human nature,” I pointed out. “There isn’t a successful business enterprise in the world that hasn’t at least one human rattlesnake in it. Nobody likes him. He is dangerous. One bite and you’re done. Yet he is so useful, crawling around the factory or the office, he keeps the mice down so wonderfully, that it would be crazy to get rid of him. In fact, the business would go to pot without him.”

“A horrible simile,” cut in Jim. “Human rattlesnakes.”

‘Yes,” I said, “and they’ve usually got a warning, too. They are people who give plenty of warning of the sting they carry. They go about cleaning up the vermin in the plant. Keeping down the mice nests and the pests that would soon eat up all the profits.”

“Horrible,” said Jim.

“We’ve got a great problem facing the world right now,” I pursued, “in the Nazis. You have to keep the balance of nature or suffer the consequences. You have to keep the balance of human nature the same way. There are certain people in the world who play the role of the rattler in human affairs. The Nazi is clearly marked, like the rattler. He gives loud warning. All the years before the outbreak of war, anybody who know rattlesnakes should have recognized the sounds coming out of Germany.”

“The rest of the world,” pointed out Jimmie, “did exactly with the Germans what you advocate we do with our woodpile. The rest of the world said, let’s encourage the Nazis to keep down the pests of the Communists.”

“Hmmm,” I said, finding myself out on a limb.

“The principle of keeping dangerous creatures in the hope that they will keep down troublesome creatures never did work.”

“What we think of as pests aren’t pests at all. They are creatures with the same right to life as our right. When we in our arrogance, set up a cottage in the wilderness, invading the natural territory of the mice, we are not content to set up proper defences of our property. For a few more dollars, we could build a mouse-tight cottage. But no. We set traps and spread poison and make war on these little people whose domain we have invaded. And we end up, finally, by taking the point of view that it is better to let rattlesnakes live to keep our property safe. The politicians of Britain, France, and America made that same mistake. They, too, arrived at the stage of encouraging rattlers rather than making their premises tight against their fancied pests.”

Jim had me.

“Well,” I said, “if it comes to that, how about the right to life of the rattler? You talk about our arrogance in setting up our cottages in the domain of the mice. How about setting up our cottages in the domain of the rattlers? Hadn’t we human beings better get right off the earth? We’re interfering with so much!”

“We’re the only creature in nature,” said Jimmie, “that can manufacture a trap or build a mouse-proof dwelling. I say we should rid the world of its rattlesnakes and other dangerous creatures, while at the same time organizing our own economy so as to interfere as little as possible with the non-dangerous creatures. For every rattlesnake we have to kill, let us invent some new measure for making the world safer for mice and all other fellow-creatures who do us no damage save dollar damage.”

“Fellow – creatures?” I sniffed.

“Sure,” said Jim. “We have to work out a philosophy of life. We haven’t got one yet. Every 20 or 30 years we go on a wild rampage against each other, slaughtering our fellow-humans, only because we have no philosophy about life as a whole. Our religion, our politics, our philosophy, take no account of any life but human life. All other life, animal and vegetable, is lawlessly sacrificed to our own ends. It is time some strong philosophic sect rose amongst us western races – we’re the really dangerous ones – which takes into account all life on earth, from the lowliest to the highest.”

“Buddhism?” I inquired.

“Let’s invent one suited to us,” Jim suggested.

“I could grow very fond of rattlers,” I mused. “When I was a boy up here, I used to collect them.”

“Collect them?” shuddered Jimmie.

Old Ananias Greg

“Used to go out in my canoe,” I explained, “at dusk, along the sandy and weedy beaches where the rattlers are hunting frogs. I had forked stick and a potato sack. I would push my canoe among the reeds and spat my paddle on the water. If there was a rattler on the beach, he would give a little startled buzz. Then I’d go in and tire him out with my forked stick. He’d strike and strike until he was exhausted. Then I’d pin his neck with my forked stick, pick him up and drop him in the sack.”

“And take him home and cook him, I suppose,” gaggled Jim.

“Naw, they’re nothing to be afraid of,” I assured him. “I’d keep them for a few days in a box, feed them frogs, and then send them to the Biological Station. The students loved them.”

“Pffff,” shivered Jimmie.

“Come on,” I said, rising. “Let’s go out to the wood pile and I’ll chase your fox snake out.”

“It was no fox snake,” said Jim.

We took the clothes prop and the paddle and poked and shoved and heaved the wood around. Not a sound.

“Jim,” I said, “If there was a rattler in that woodpile, we couldn’t have come within 10 feet of it without the gentleman giving us a warning.”

“It’s nice,” said Jim, “to have somebody right on the premises who knows so much about rattlers.”

“Go ahead,” I said, “Pick an armful of stove wood. I’ll take a load of these big chunks for the living-room stove. The nights are getting cool enough for a little fire.”

Jim hastily snatched up an armful of the stove wood and took it into the kitchen box to split for the kitchen stove. I poked and poked around for a particularly nice selection of these pieces and carried them into the living-room.

As I approached the stove, the armful got a little out of hand, as big armfuls do. And they started to slide.

“Look out!” screeched Jim.

“Let ’em go…” I began.

But an awful and age-old sound bit the silent peace of the living room. It was a sibilant, writhing, stinging sound. Not a buzz, not a dead leaf sound, but a very living sound, one of the oldest and most malignant sounds in all nature and from all time.

One of the billets I was carrying was a hollow oak log.

Thirty Inches of Snake

And out of the log, sliding and lashing and zinging its nine-jointed rattle in a fury of temper, came a magnificent specimen of our little Massasauga, about 30 inches long. And landed with a rich plop right on the living-room floor about a foot from my feet.

I dropped the whole armful on him.

I leaped back and snatched the nearest hunk and bashed it down.

“Easy, easy,” screeched Jim. “Don’t mash him on the good floor!”

But philosophy is a fragile thing. And what a man says or even what he believes, can hardly stand up to the test when it comes to his own living-room.

So I bashed several times more, all the while dancing on my toes like a hen on a hot griddle.

And Jim stood back in the corner roaring. With laughter.

And when I had done and the serpent was flattened all over the floor amid the cordwood, I felt very weak and took to trembling.

And Jimmie, emitting whoops of laughter and joy, took me and led me to the couch, where I lay down, very grateful.

“What a picture,” roared Jim; “what a picture you made, hopping around on tip-toe and at the same time trying to hit that poor little creature with a log of stove wood!”

“I don’t mind rattlers,” I explained weakly from the couch, “except in the house…”

Editor’s Notes: A clothes prop is a long wooden pole with a forked end, used to raise a line of washing to enable it to catch the breeze.

The Massasauga rattlesnake is Ontario’s only venomous snake, and is currently threatened, which means the species lives in the wild in Ontario, is not endangered, but is likely to become endangered if steps are not taken to address factors threatening it.

The Eastern fox snake is non-venomous, but is also threatened or endangered in areas of Ontario.

George Hebdon Corsan was known as the “The Nut Man of Islington”. In the 1920s he had a regular column in the Toronto Star called “Wild Life on the Humber”, and Greg knew him personally, and said he was “the only crank and fanatic I have ever known who has a sense of humour, delights in being a crank, rejoices in his fanaticism, and knows exactly what each and every person he meets thinks of him!”