Christmas in Cramahe Story 3

This is the final story in our series of Christmas stories written by Cramahe Township authors. We hope you enjoyed them.

Please remember that the copyright for all three stories remains with the authors. The stories may not be reprinted without their permission.

JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE
by Ed Greenwood

Copyright © 2009 by Ed Greenwood


If you should ever happen to drive into one of the parts of Ontario where pioneer families discovered that the biggest crop they were ever going to grow on their farms was rocks, and you get lost on one of the winding, broken-topped lanes that our government is pleased to call “county highways,” you just might happen to wind up in Lowcandle, where I used to live.

Used to live, because even back then there weren’t many jobs, or much money. Lowcandle had a garage, and a gas station, and a hardware store, and a cemetery . . . and sixteen churches. Fifteen of them empty, and no post office, either. The nearest store that sold clothes not meant for the farmyard, or televisions, or toys, or drapes, or anything at all seen in the ads on TV except cigarettes—yeah, they advertised gaspers on TV back then—was the better part of a full day’s drive from Lowcandle, down in Horn Falls. Which is not much more than a sign, now, but back then Horn Falls was a big, modern place. They had twenty-six churches, and a drive-in movie theatre!

Now if you did end up in Lowcandle, and noticed by the bridge at the south end of the village that a dirt lane branches off the highway to wind its way along the banks of the creek until it just fades away in the trees that used to be McHandlin’s orchard, and for some crazy reason you turned into that lane just far enough not to get your car stuck, you’d be able to see a little mound in the trees beside an old stone chimney standing up by itself, where a two-room cabin used to be. And if you got lost in Lowcandle on Christmas Eve, you’d see a huge woodpile just waiting to be lit, in what used to be a front yard, right in front of that mound. If you did get stuck and were still there Christmas morning, you’d see that pile turn into a bonfire. Heck, most years you can see its smoke half the county away.

These days, if you ask why there was a bonfire every Christmas on the lawn of a house that’s gone, but never any other time of year, you’ll hear all sorts of stories. But I know the truth. My name is Jack Gaunt, and I’m here to tell you about the year Christmas came anyway.

It happened when I was a lot younger than I am now, back when I was still in what they used to call short pants, which meant I was old enough to do the dirtiest and most dangerous of the farm chores but not grown up enough to be allowed to take part in anything that was fun.

Continued...