were added to accommodate girlfriends, boyfriends, and spouses. Soon there would be grandchildren. The very idea of being an auntie made her want to jump out the window.
“Maudie! Dinner!”
“Coming!”
It had become increasingly difficult for her to behave herself at these gatherings, to hold her tongue and not rock the boat too much. But her father enjoyed seeing her in action. She held her ground and countered her brothers’ volleys.
She could pretty much predict what the dinner conversation would be like: her father would back the idea of using martial law in Michigan to get the coal moving again. Joe won’t like that. He’d be applauding the Red influence among the rail unions.
Bob would cut in with a comment about hydroelectricity being the wave of the future. He spent his days at McNaughton’s store selling electric toasters, vacuum cleaners, curling tongs, and gawd knows what else.
Dorothy and her husband would try to steer the conversation towards temperance, pointing out the Mounties’ successful raid on the Meyers house in Ford City last week. They’d picked up his still, a quantity of mash, and a few jars of third rail whisky.
Jennie’s tastes bordered on the sensational. She’d likely bring up the brutal murder of a watchman at a factory in Hamilton and ask what the world was coming to.
Gavin was the aspiring real estate tycoon. He’d have noticed that the Labadie farm sold and that would lead to talk of planning and the Border Cities and then the amalgamation hot potato would get tossed around until the eldest, Austin, cooled things off with the latest news on the Old Boys festivities kicking off in a couple weeks.
Vera Maude grabbed her book bag and headed down the narrow stairs. When she got to the bottom she had to wiggle around the table, which was so long it stretched from the dining room into the parlour. Vera Maude dropped her book bag in the foyer and looked for a seat.
“Maudie, I want you sitting here next to me,” said her father as he pulled out the chair to his left.
The older boys looked at each other but didn’t say a word. The wives and girlfriends started bringing food out of the kitchen. It was typical Essex County fare: a pork roast, sweet corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, radishes and cucumbers, warm biscuits, and a potato salad tossed with green beans and mayonnaise. Austin said Grace.
Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts,
Which we are about to receive from thy bounty
Through Christ Our Lord.
Vera Maude mumbled her own made-up words and her father nudged her under the table.
“Ah, men,” she concluded.
Everyone grabbed one of the dishes and her father cut into the roast. Plates were passed around. Vera Maude’s came back with a radish on it.
“Gee, thanks a bunch.”
— Chapter 9 —
THE THIRD PAGE
RIDING WITH THE
BORDER CITY BLUES
THIS WEEK:
A DULL ROAR
Prohibition means there will always be more battles than there will be men to fight them, and the police in the Border Cities know that. Sometimes the best they can do is just keep things down to a dull roar. They do this first by picking off the low-hanging fruit.
Last Thursday a fellow burst into the station claiming his car had been stolen. While he was giving his statement a call came in about an abandoned vehicle: a patrolman had found a car with its front bumper joined to a telephone pole. He also found a trunk full of illegal beer. The fellow tried to pin it on the alleged car thieves but after the police applied the right pressure the fellow confessed to being in the ‘transport business.’ He had jumped the curb trying to avoid a child in the street and rather than get caught with wet goods, he decided to report the car stolen. He was charged and given a court date.
Trying to stop the flow of liquor in the Border Cities can be a bit like trying to hold back the tide with a mop and pail. There are a number of hotel bars and roadhouses that the police watch in a random rotation. Last Friday night the Dominion Tavern’s number came up. Undercover police discovered strong beer on the premises and the owner was fined $200. He put it down to the cost of doing business.
That was an easy one. However, simple exercises like this can easily turn violent. One night last week Officer Allan Corbishdale was patrolling the alley behind the streetcar waiting room at Ferry Street when he heard an engine fire up and pull away. He suspected foul play. When they refused to halt the officer broke into a sprint and jumped onto the running board. Corbishdale later told the Star that the driver, Clayton Pastorius, then ‘stepped on the gas.’
Corbishdale climbed into the rear of the vehicle where he discovered the reason for the driver’s anxiety: six cases of illegal beer. When Mr. Pastorius’s accomplice, Alex Renaud, reached back and started getting rough with Corbishdale, the officer struck him over the head with his nightstick. Renaud, the officer said, then wrested the club from his hand and returned the favour. Frustrated, Corbishdale drew his revolver and fired a warning shot through the roof of the car.
Renaud remained aggres-sive, Corbishdale said, and the officer was eventually forced to strike him over the head with the butt of his revolver, rendering him unconscious. With the vehicle approaching the Prince Edward Hotel, Corbishdale knew he had to put the brakes on this caper.
He fired another shot that shattered the windshield and caused Pastorius to briefly lose control as he turned onto Park Street. The vehicle finally came to a stop at the front steps of St. Alphonsus School. The next day the Sisters had a few things to say about the broken glass and skid marks on the front lawn.
There is this black and white world of thieves and smugglers and then there is the shadier world of the confidence men. This afternoon Mr. Karl Schwab of Janette Avenue reported to police that a bogus raid had been made on his home and the fraudulent officials hauled off three cases of legitimately-obtained whisky.
Watch for this space in next Saturday’s Star to discover how it all played out.
“Hold on to this,” Montroy said to Corbishdale as he folded the newspaper and tossed it onto the dashboard. “Your mother might want it for her scrapbook.”
They were sitting in the new police flyer, a sleek, sprawling Studebaker Six. Corbishdale was behind the wheel and Montroy was sitting next to him, going over the events of the past thirty-six hours, bringing the rookie up to speed.
“Yeah, and so Schwab arrived at the station with his tongue wagging like a setter’s. He collapsed in the chair by my desk, mopping his forehead with a damp handkerchief and clutching his documents. He told me two men — he noticed a third waiting in the car running outside — came knocking on his door. They said they were licensing department officials, flashed some ID, and then proceeded to frisk the place. When they found the whisky, Schwab protested. He told them it was legal.”
“Why didn’t he just show them his papers?” asked Corbishdale.
“Said he got flustered and forgot where he kept them. Wouldn’t have done any good anyway. A few minutes
