By Bev Machesney
I grew up in Creemore, a small Ontario village of about 600 people in the 1940s. My dad, Orr Machesney, owned a grocery store in the main business block of Mill Street from 1939 until the summer of 1972, when he retired. From the time I could see over the counter, I helped in the store. I bagged potatoes, swept the floors, cleaned the meat block and delivered grocery orders by bike in summer and sleigh in winter.
Our village was what you would call a “market town,” and the farm folks from several miles around made Saturday their “come to town and visit” evening. In summer they came by car if they had one, but more likely by horse and wagon. In winter – the time I liked best – it was nearly always by horse and sleigh. The horses were tethered and blanketed in one of the four church sheds. Believe it or not we had four churches in our wee village.
The farm folks would drop off their cream at the creamery and their eggs at the grading station. These were their cash crops. Then they would come into our store and order their groceries, pull up a stool next to the potbellied stove and get caught up on all the gossip.
They would eventually go and collect their egg and cream money, pay for their grocery order and reassemble around the stove until at least 10 pm. This was late for someone of my age, but Sunday the store was closed and it was a sleep-in day.
As a boy, I had my favourite customers – in particular, Clark and Maggie Aikins. They were fun, and in retrospect the fact they had no children likely made their short time with this young nine year old very important – or so I would like to think. The big event on many a cold and snowy night, after all gossip had been exchanged, came when Clark would say, “Come on lad, and we’ll go get the horses,” and so we’d trudge off to the Presbyterian church shed. He’d take off their blankets and back them out with the sleigh out and then hand the reins to me. Here I was at age nine driving a sleigh with a team of magnificent Clydesdales: King and Queenie. Didn’t I think I was something special.
Then summer came and Clark and Maggie still came to town on Saturdays, but it wasn’t the same. They now had a car and I wondered what winter would bring.
Summer was fun. We swam in the river, played baseball in the park and roamed the surrounding hills. Parents didn’t worry about their children’s whereabouts, but we were expected to be home for supper and before dark.
Then finally, the winter of 1942-1943 arrived and I was now 10 – very grown up, or so I thought. Now the Saturday nights I so looked forward to resumed. Clark and Maggie came to town by horse and sleigh, and I would wait impatiently for the words, “Let’s go get the horses, Bev.”
Then one January Saturday night when we went to get the horses, there was a new mare replacing Queenie. She was immense, amber in color with a white face, and really quite striking. I asked, “Where was Queenie?” and Clark said that she was getting very old so he was letting her rest. My next question was, “ What’s this new horse’s name?” Clark said, “Well, by golly, I forgot to ask when I picked her up. But I’ll tell you what – why don’t you come up with a name? Think about it this week and we’ll settle on it next Saturday.”
So there I was with responsibility for naming Clark’s new mare. A big job. What could we call her? It had to be feminine and had to be classy; a name the horse would be proud of.
Names came and were rejected. Not Annie, not Julie and not Beauty – although that was close. Then it came to me. She was so regal. How about Princess?
That week, I could hardly contain myself and I thought Saturday night would never arrive. Finally Clark and Maggie had their cream and egg money, they’d bought their groceries and exhausted all the local gossip, and Clark said, “Let’s you and I go get the horses.” Off we went to the church shed and on the way he said, “So what is to be the new one’s name?” I proudly said, “I’ve chosen Princess.” Clark stopped dead in his tracks turned, looked straight at me and shouted, “Dag nab it – that’s perfect!”
As you would expect, my winter Saturday nights became even more special because it was then that I drove Princess, the horse that I had named.
This story could end here and probably should, but I know you want to learn the future of all the characters. Me, you know about – I’m still hanging in 71 years later.
All the early part of this story is real. Clark and Maggie (they were real people, actually brother and sister) continued to farm and visit the market village of Creemore on Saturday night until they were of a ripe old age. Then they moved to a house in the village (a guess on my part). King and Queenie, figments of my imagination, had a wonderful retirement enjoying each others’ company and the freedom of the pasture. As for my horse Princess (another figment), she went on to the most rewarding of jobs – she was responsible for introducing Earl (yet another figment), her new regal partner, to the world of team work.
Memories like this, real or imagined, are priceless – don’t I wish that I had really held the reins!
Bev Machesney grew up in Creemore and has lived in Vancouver since the 1960s. Bev attended elementary and continuation school in Creemore, and he has said, many times and to many people, that he wouldn’t trade his formative years in Creemore for the world.