Waiting for a parcel from Eaton’s mail order catalogue was better than waiting for Christmas.
Three times a week the train came puffing into town from the East, dumping bags of mail from the baggage car onto the station platform. Three times a week I left school during noon hour and hurried across the tracks to the village post office.
During summer holidays, I had to walk the mile to town, trudging down our lane in the heat of August, shuffling south across the railway tracks, east down the long stretch of gravel road, back across the tracks and into town.
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Sometimes I was lucky enough to hitch a ride with my brother or Dad, but more often than not I caught a ride with Farley.
Old Farley was a world traveller whose references to transatlantic voyages and European train travel frequently cropped up in his conversations. The community was rather shocked when, late in life, he returned with a Scottish bride, a former ship’s architect, no less.
We often wondered what she thought of Farley’s setup. His farmyard was a motley collection of derelict outbuildings, dwarfed by a sagging hip-roofed barn. An assortment of livestock roamed at will around the pig wallow, where two or three fat hogs whiled away the summers. Barn cats dozed in the sun and half a dozen farm Collies slept in front of their respective doghouses.
At least one thing Farley and his wife had in common was their love for animals. A local man dropping in to do repair work was surprised to see a hen walk out from behind the kitchen stove. It was explained that she was not feeling well and they had brought her inside to convalesce.
Our farm Collie, Tubby, chose to spend the last year of his life at Farley’s place and one day Farley made a special trip to tell us that the night before, Tubby had come to their door and extended his paw to shake hands.
“I believe he had a premonition, and I am sorry to say he passed away during the night in his doghouse. Rest assured I gave him a proper burial this morning,” said Farley, offering sincere condolences.
Farley drove a dilapidated pickup, pockmarked by stones and rusted through on the bottom half. What was left of the original blue paint was camouflaged by random chicken droppings and splotches of mud. The fenders, loosened by the vibration of washboard roads, flapped along with the whole conveyance, a little like the old fellow’s mouth when he got involved in a vigorous debate at the post office.
And the post office was Farley’s forum. Here he educated his neighbours on the finer aspects of blue-chip stocks and bonds, or debated politics, or discussed current affairs.
Listening to him talk freely about investments, I tried in vain to imagine what I could buy from Eaton’s catalogue with $1,000.
Proof that Farley’s financial assets were no hollow boast lay in the dividends mailed to him at regular intervals. Long before care homes were common, Farley approached my mother as to whether she would manage one for local seniors if he were to build it. She was not able to do so, but other instances of his generous spirit floated about the community.
Three times a week, the train’s whistle had scarcely faded into the distance when Farley’s pickup could be seen moving toward town in a cloud of dust.
If I timed it just right, he always offered me a ride.
I sometimes wondered if his erratic driving was due to the fact that one of his eyes operated independently of the other.
I only know that every time I rode with him, my knuckles got white from hanging onto the dashboard. But then again, maybe it was because I had to balance myself on the outer edge of the seat just to keep from being impaled on a broken spring.
I always got out of Farley’s truck perspiring profusely and smelling faintly of horses and hogs.
Joining the rest of the locals waiting for the postmaster to sort the mail, I found the stifling heat of the little post office nearly unbearable.
Soon, the pungent smell of the farmers’ gold encrusted to the bottom of Farley’s overalls began to permeate the air, clearing the room of any loitering teenagers.
I stayed, swallowing hard.
My parcel might come. Would I like the dress? Would the socks match? The shoes fit?
They did.
And there was even better news.
The family allowance was going up by $1 a month at the end of the year. With such a generous raise, I might even have to call upon Farley’s superior knowledge of finances to balance my books.
Somehow, I had the feeling he would agree with the principle found in Proverbs 30:8 “Give me neither poverty nor riches.”
