Culture Comes to Clear Creek

by Ruth Zavitz

Ethel Jones is a managing kind of woman, and mostly we let her. She's put on quite a bit more weight than she carried when she married Freeman and is pretty imposing. She's got a shelf in front she could set her cup and saucer on and one in the back just like it, though I don't know what use that one is.

There's some in the community that says she's too bossy and stuck-up, seeing as she was raised in the city and only moved here ten years ago, in nineteen-twenty, when she married Freeman. But this time she came a cropper.

She's been president of the Women's Institute for what seems like donkey's years and is all for uplifting the community. I suspect she'd like to be head of the Junior Farmers too, but she's some past junior and, since she's a woman, doesn't qualify for farmer either. At any rate, she does the best she can to educate us in the finer things in life, as she says.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first thing she tried after she got to be president of the Women's Institute was a goormet cooking course. The Women's Institute Branch of the Department of Agriculture sends out women (Home Economicists they call them) to run courses for any Institute that wants them. We've had courses on dressmaking and fancywork and once we had one on canning. Turned out we knew more about putting up food for winter than the woman who was teaching us--but she did the best she could. This was the first time we'd had a course on fancy cooking, though.

I guess we get in a rut, cooking the same stuff every day. We're mostly interested in filling our families' stomachs as quick and cheap as we can. Edna Turner told me the other day her sister in Nobleton just serves one big meal a day, at suppertime. At dinnertime (they call it lunch) they have soup or sandwiches. I can see my man sitting down to a measly bowl of soup after he's been pitching manure all morning!

Well, anyway, a cooking course would have been good for us, I guess, but it was set for August and the farm women were too busy cooking for threshers to go to it. A few of the village women went. Mable Moore raved about the pretty fours. When she described them I got a sudden picture of Daddy Orr who runs the threshing outfit, in his greasy overalls and black fingernails, holding a tiny piece of cake with silver balls all over the icing. Daddy thinks a slab of cake less than four inches square isn't worth bothering with.

Ethel was disappointed. Said it was us farm women she'd set it up for. Hinted we were the ones who needed it. Rita Green was pretty mad about that and didn't speak to Ethel for a couple of weeks.

Ethel always buys a season's pass to the Nobleton Little Theatre. "Everyone should go and support our local theatre. It's very uplifting."

When I told my husband John, he said, "It's more uplifting to spend the money for pigfeed."

Ethel took me one time when Freeman was sick with the 'flu and couldn't use his ticket. I couldn't see what was so great about the play. The scenery and costumes were beautiful but the language would make your hair stand on end. If that's culture, maybe we're better off without it. I'd wash my kids' mouths out with soap if they ever said those words!

Well, anyway, Ethel heard someone talking at the theatre that the government was giving a grant to the Nobleton Symphony Orchestra to come out and play to folks in the country. Ethel said that was just the thing to "introduce us to the cultural world."

We're always looking for ways to make money for the Institute and we thought this was worth a try, but Ethel said, "No. It has to be free or the symphony won't get the grant."

That kind of put a damper on the idea as far as the rest of us were concerned but Ethel steamed ahead. "People will come to a free concert who can't afford to pay to attend," she said.

She nominated a committee, with her as chairman, to ask the trustees if we could have the concert in the Community Hall. The basement of the school is a sort of dual-purpose room: Community Hall, and gym for the kids when it's too wet or cold outside. The trustees weren't too happy about giving it for free but Ethel said, "It's educational. That's what a school is for," so they agreed.

Ethel made all the arrangements. "The stage is too small for the full orchestra but there'll be enough to whet your appetites," she said.

Some of us doubted there was much appetite for high-toned music to whet. We like Ed Carter's dance orchestra or organ music like in church, but that's about as far as it goes.

Ethel said, "A PR man" (whatever that is) "will be coming out from the city to look at the hall."

Sure enough a man came into the store one day when I was getting some sugar. I had a cake half mixed up at home but I just had to stay to see what he wanted.

A real dandy: three-piece suit, two-tone shoes and his hair combed into a pompadour like Ethel's. He stretched his hand across the counter to Bob and said, "I'm Frederick Philip Folkestone." Now there's a handle!

Bob said, "Robinson Down." Bob had on the pair of suit pants with the red braces and striped shirt with the sleeve garters he always wears and I was in my housedress. We sure didn't stack up very well against this fancy Dan.

Robinson! Well. I've known Bob all my life. Always thought his first name was Robert. Makes sense, though. His mother was a Robinson.

Mr. Three Fs tipped his hat to me real polite and without thinking, I said, "Elizabeth Smith." This polite stuff must be catching. Mostly I answer to Betty. Right then I wished I'd changed out of my housedress before coming to the store.

The man looked around and wrinkled his nose as if he didn't care for the smell. Well, Bob had recently oiled the floor, and what with the perfume of the new leather boots and harness at the back of the store and the pickle barrel by the counter the air was kind of strong. Bob wiped his hands on his apron--he'd just been filling a coal oil can for Jock McLaughlin (Lottie uses a coal-oil stove in the summer) and that added to the mix. Coal oil is pretty smelly.

The man blew his nose in a big white handkerchief and when he came out of it Bob said, "What can I do for you?"

"I came out to look at the hall where the symphony is giving a performance. I've driven all over the village but I can't find it. Would you be so good as to direct me?"

So this is the PR man, I thought. A different breed, for sure.

"Oh, it ain't in the village," said Bob. "It's in the basement of the high school. If you take the fifth west for near a mile and turn south at Green's corner you can't miss it."

The PR man looked confused. "What's the fifth?"

I don't know how he got his job. He sure didn't seem to be very smart. Must be some of that patronage the newspaper is always talking about.

"Why, the fifth concession," said Bob. "There's a signpost on the corner."

"Oh. And which way is west?"

Can you imagine that? Not even knowing the directions. I guess the buildings are so high in the city they never see the sun. I figured he'd be lucky if he ever made it back home.

Bob was pretty patient, for him. He took his time while he weighed out my sugar into a brown paper bag. When he had folded down the top in what he calls a drug store fold and tied it with string, he tipped me a wink and said to the PR man, "If you haw when you come to the corner and then haw again at the red barn you'll be all right."

Well, of course this smart man didn't know what haw was--probably doesn't know gee either--but eventually they got it together and the man left.

Bob and I had a good laugh when he'd gone. "Takes all kinds to make a world," Bob said, "but now and then I think we could get along without some of the kinds."

Ethel got up a bee to clean the gym. "You can't expect classical musicians to play in that sweat smell," she said. We kept the doors and windows open all day and scrubbed everything we could think of, but it still smelled a little.

Ethel borrowed all the houseplants she could get to put along the front of the stage. Violet's Boston fern looked beautiful. You couldn't say the same for my weedy geraniums or Mable's philodendron that had a leaf about every three feet. Ethel twined the philodendron in and out between the other plants and that helped some.

"I wish it was summer. We could have bouquets of garden flowers and really dress up the stage," she said.

"If it was, Ethel, everybody would be too busy to come," said Violet.

I wasn't going to go to the concert, but John said since I was on the committee I really ought to. So I made him go, too. "Marriage is for better or worse," I said.

At the last minute John said, "The heifer looks like she's going to calve. I think I'd better stay home and look to her."

"That excuse isn't going to get you out of it," I said. "The heifer will be all right for an hour or two."

He still took his time getting ready and I was in no mood to hurry him, so it was almost time for the concert to start when we got there.

The orchestra was on the stage and such a caterwauling you never heard. Ed Carter's orchestra always tunes up with a few toots and squeaks before a dance, but I never heard anything like this.

John said, "Has the concert started already?" and grinned at me in that infuriating way he has.

Ethel gushed all over us. "So glad you could come! What a wonderful treat we have in store for us!"

She was wearing a whey-coloured chiffon dress with a lot of loose pieces that floated out when she moved--looked like one of those whirligig clotheslines full of curtains at spring cleaning time.

Looking around, I could see the reason she was so glad to see us. Freeman was there, looking like Ethel had dragged him--and she probably had. The two ministers were there with their wives, the chairman of the schoolboard, the schoolteacher and the music teacher, the Major and Mrs. Martin--and that's all!

All the women were in their best dresses, with hats and gloves on. I had worn my green crepe but didn't realize this was a church kind of affair so my hat and gloves were still at home in the closet. Mrs. Martin had on a long dress that looked like it had slipped down a little--showed a lot of neck and arms. She had a string of sparkly beads around her neck but they didn't do much to cover up all that bare skin. A big fluffy purple feather, the same colour as her dress, was pinned in her hair. I don't know what kind of bird it came off of. No turkey or chicken I ever saw, anyhow.

The men, like John, were in their Sunday suits, white shirts and best ties--except Major Martin. He had one of those old-fashioned outfits with the long tails and a little bit of a white tie close up under his chin. It shows who holds the purse strings in that family. All the orchestra men had those old suits on, too. There must not be much money in orchestring.

Anyway, there was this little bunch of people in the middle of the hall with all those empty chairs in front and back of them. It looked kind of depressing. We sat around for fifteen minutes after the concert was supposed to start, but nobody else showed up. Finally Ethel gave the signal and the concert went ahead.

The leader stood in front of the orchestra with his back to us. Real rude, I thought. He waved a little stick at the players but they didn't pay any attention, except at the start. They had their eyes on their music, laid out on little wire stands. I guess they can't afford the time to practice. Ed Carter's group knows all their pieces off by heart.

There were fiddles, some big, some regular size and lots of horns, all different shapes, but I didn't see a single saxophone, my favorite. One man stood up and played some kind of curly horn, all by himself. I guess the rest of them didn't know that part.

One woman had a huge fiddle standing on the floor between her knees. Some people don't seem to care what they look like. When she sawed away with a big fiddle bow it sounded like Bessie mooing hello at me when I go in the stable. I liked that. One fellow had a black stick he blew in the side of, instead of the end. It squealed like the little pigs when they're fighting over their mother's teats. I sure don't think that's music. Maybe it would have sounded better if he'd turned it round the right way.

There was a man standing up at the back with two big gold colored kettle lids. He banged them together every once in awhile, to be sure we were awake, I guess. Reverend Harrass could use a set of those.

None of it was the kind of music I'm used to. Some of it was nice and made my heart beat fast like a good polka, but some of it hurt my ears, it was so off-key.

John didn't like any of it. "There wasn't a tune in a wagonload," he said.

Afterward, Ethel said, "Did you enjoy it?"

I said, "It was all right, I guess, but they should practise more and get rid of those sour bits."

"My dear, that's the way it's supposed to be. It takes an educated ear to appreciate it."

Well, maybe, but I like a nice waltz, myself.

I'd have been home, hiding in the cellar after a fiasco like that, but nothing is ever Ethel's fault, to her mind. She showed up early Monday morning at the store. I was getting some laundry soap and Ed Carter was in buying tobacco. Right away she tackled Ed as to why he hadn't come to the concert--him being musical, and all.

Ed scratched under the side of his jaw while he thought about it. He's quick on the fiddle, but otherwise takes his time.

Finally he said, "I figure if it don't cost nothin' it ain't worth nothin'."

And that about covers it, I guess.

The End

Culture Comes to Clear Creek; 2004 by Ruth Zavitz

Ruth Zavitz grew up on a Southern Ontario farm and writes short stories about the characters she knew then. She is working on a historical trilogy about the little people, the bystanders, who were victims in the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Though a senior, she doesn't go back that far. Much as she loves writing fiction she is better known for her gardening articles. She currently writes a weekly column for The Londoner and her book, High on Grasses, Ornamental Grasses for Northern Climates is slated for publication in the spring of 2005. Wearing her other hat, she grows the plants she writes about, specializing in rare indoor flowering types.

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