| Transcript |
- 154 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
charm indescribable that he felt, but could not express. I feel this way myself.
It is Christmas and its surroundings in any age that help to make these pleasing regrets. The incidents and the persons connected with them are gone and can never be recalled. The friends we knew then, whom we may have met at one of those Christmas gatherings, we see them as they pass before our mental vision. Where are they all to-day? The Quadra Street Cemetery might be able to tell, for each is " in his narrow cell forever laid."
I have rambled far enough, and it is time I got to my story.
I would remark in passing that Christmas, to be genuine, should be bright and frosty, with a flurry of snow, and this with walking exercise makes the blood to flow freely, and makes one feel better able to enjoy the festive occasion.
Well, we had just such weather in those days, and such weather is sadly lacking in these. Our climate has changed very much since then. Less snow and cold and more rain now. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle ! The merry sleigh bell! After the advent of the first snow, and when deep enough, there might be heard the sleigh-bell, either on a grocer's or butcher's sleigh, or on an improvised sleigh made from a dry-goods case with a pair of runners attached, to which would be fastened a pair of shafts from a buggy or wagon not now usable. Everyone who owned a horse had a sleigh at little cost, and good use was made of it while the snow lasted. Long drives in the country or to church, or to a Christmas party or dance. I can see such a merry sleigh party of young people, the girls well wrapped up peeping over their furs, laughing and dodging the snowballs
CHRISTMAS IN PIONEER DAYS 155
thrown by a party of boys around the corner, who are always waiting for the next one to come along.
" Where is now the merry party I remember long ago, Laughing round the Christmas fire, brightened by its ruddy glow;
Or in summer's balmy evenings, in the field upon the hay? They have all dispersed and wandered, far away, far away!"
We nearly all went to church?the Anglicans, and many Nonconformists with them?on Christmas morning, and the Catholics on Christmas Eve. But first of all there was the preparation for the event. About a week before wagon-loads of young fir trees were brought in from the outskirts, and every storekeeper and many householders procured enough to decorate the front of the house or shop, a tree being tied to each verandah post. In those days no shop was complete without its wooden awning, as may be seen in many of the old photos of that period. Imagine Government Street, both sides, from end to end, one continuous line of green, relieved with, it might be, white; just enough snow to cover the ground, "bright and crisp and even."
I have often longed for such a Christmas in these degenerate times, when rain is nearly always the order of the day. All the Christmas shopping was done during Christmas week. The fancy goods stores of those clays were few?" Hibben & Carswell," " The London Bazaar," and David Spencer. The former was then on Yates Street, corner of Langley, and the other two in Government Street; and I must not forget Thomas Gorrie on Fort Street. There was not the choice in toys and fancy articles then. Children were satisfied with less, and were just as happy. The beautiful and ex-
|
|---|
