Tales and Items of Interest

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Campground on the Ludlow Jenkins property and stopping to chat with Ludlow. He would sometimes come along for the ride to the store.

In the sleigh with us would be a case of eggs to be traded for groceries, and maybe a three gallon jar or crock to be filled with molasses, a smaller one for vinegar, as well as a five gallon can for kerosene and usually a like size can for gasoline to operate the stationary engine for pumping water, thrashing and crushing grain.

For the journey home, after releasing old Queenie or Bill who had been tied to the solid wooden fence adjacent to the store, we would be hauling our filled cans and jars, the egg case loaded with many necessities for a large family, plus a one hundred pound bag of flour. The animals not to be forgotten, we loaded a bag each of bran and oilcake for the cows, and shorts, middlings and fish meal for the pigs, to add to the home grown crushed grain. One last item would be a bag of apples from Ludlow’s large apple orchard.

Items such as salt, sugar, vinegar and spices were essential for the preservation of food - no deep freezers. When a pig was slaughtered on the farm, the meat was preserved in a barrel filled with a brine of water, sugar, saltpetre and vinegar.

Lela recalls the evening of June 6, 1939 when Ray MacCallum came to their rescue. As he was passing by the store, Ray noticed flames coming from the building which resulted in complete destruction of their home and store. “We could only helplessly watch in shock, as all our personal belongings went up in smoke.” Lela recalls the many friends and neighbors who assisted in building a new home and store combination, and in a short time the cowbell over the door was ringing again. Not to take away from the kindness of the friends and neighbors, this store was almost as important to them as it was to the livelihood of the Muttart family.

It was recalled of a winter storm in the early forties, when the snowplow was several days reaching the school hill (St. Peters Rd. at this time followed the route of what is now known as the Linden Rd. where the “school hill” was located with

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a much steeper hill and sharper turn than presently exists.) and couldn’t make it any further, that the neighbors turned out to literally carry Harry’s truck to where the plow had become stuck, so he could get to town for supplies. We were in the period of transition from horses to gas powered vehicles, and Harry had become dependent upon his pickup to haul his supplies from Charlottetown.

The aroma of the country store is not to be forgotten. The box of smoked digby sitting outside the counter, the bologna and smoked bacon waiting to be sliced, the Hickey Nicholson’s twist waiting for a chewer, the stock of bananas hanging from the ceiling, the dried salt cod, the crate of oranges, the big cakes of surprise soap, the big round cheese combined with various bulk foods left an impression one does not forget.

Harry Muttart was a generous individual who operated on the narrowest margin of profit possible to make a living. He was very much a socialist at heart and a strong supporter of the CCF party which was the forerunner of the NDP. It should also be noted that Harry was an entertainer of considerable talent. When a community concert was produced in the thirties Harry could sing and perform with the best.

His generosity was vividly expressed through the bag of candy discreetly dropped into your box of groceries. This was a real treat during the wartime when candy and the like was as scarce as the money to buy it.

Fresh meat and fish were not stocked at the country store due to a lack of refrigeration so people were dependent upon pickled or smoked meats most of the year. During the summer months, regular meat and fish peddlers called at the door. The writer recalls Lloyd (Gandy) MacCallum, the meat peddler for this area and a character to be remembered. Every Thursday at noon, Gandy would arrive with his pickup and wooden box containing a good supply of freshly killed beef. First off, Gandy would throw open the door on the back and describe the kind of animal that had borne this beautiful beef - maybe a blue shorthom cross heifer from Arthur Hughes. Soon a full slice

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