The Liverpool stores are decorated for 1906

I know one thing. The wife does want a little Christmas adventure, so I’m going to suggest Liverpool. I am acquainted with some of the townsmen there.

What I won’t do is take the mare and go down. There was a bit of snow the other day, so the wagon would be tricky, but unless things change, there isn’t enough snow for the sleigh. We will have to take the train, and leave the oldest girl in charge.

I do admire the Liverpool stores. I like the ones at the Caledonia Corner, too, but we shop there all year and the wife thinks the bright lights of a different place will bring her just the right gift for someone on her list. She is addled about that, to be sure, but try and convince her. I may go around and apologize to the shopkeepers here.

I think the oldest girl will be okay looking after the others. She’s 15 now and has taken a turn for the better. I thought at first that the Pink Pills I gave her for her present last year had indeed restored her blood, but then I found them, unopened, in a sack out in the barn. When I told the wife she said that if I didn’t keep quiet for once and for all about those pills she would put arsenic in my porridge.

I couldn’t tell if she actually meant to or not, but she seemed to feel pretty strongly about it, so I decided to keep mum. I don’t want to have to get the dog to taste my porridge before I eat it.

But the girl is happier now, and is even passably nice to me. There is color in her cheeks and she is taking care with her appearance, so that she is beginning to look tolerable. I do worry that the new boy in school, whose family moved back in the summer from Timmins, might be getting ideas. I will have to get out the shotgun if he ever comes around here, but so far, so good.

The Liverpool Advance and Western Counties Advocate – I swear that’s its full name – says the Liverpool stores are all dressed up for Christmas. The wife wants to go to A.A. Mollins millinery, opposite the Mersey hotel, and pick up some fancy goods for gifts. She also fancies one of those E & T corsets, and while it would be below me to purchase women’s undergarments, I might give her the money and tell her to get one for herself. After all, it wouldn’t be good for my standing in the community if she let her appearance go.

One thing I’d like to do, if I can get the wife busy in the shops, is take the Liverpool and Milton Railway out to near where they’re building the new paper mill in Milton. I always have a hankering to see progress in action. The railway has to be pushed further along to get to the mill, and the town council is helping by giving it a free right of way. It seems like everyone is hoping a new-fangled paper mill in the area will be successful.

By the schedules, I think I can get out there and back in short time, and then look into the stores myself. One store that is going all out is the Upper Drug Store, owned by Edgar Hutchins. Their advertisement takes up the whole of the front page of The Advance, claiming that the store eclipses any show of holiday goods ever attempted in Liverpool. They sell everything from toilet articles to toys, and since my gifts last year went over like spoiled cabbage, I should carefully inspect the stock.

I want to keep the peace with the oldest girl, so I might buy her a purse or an autograph album – I would honor her with my signature on the first page – but if either costs more than two dollars I will have to rethink the situation. The younger girl might like a dressed doll, said to be lifelike, and I can get the boy a new sled.

The wife would dearly love to be in Liverpool Christmas night. At the Opera House, the Iroquois Indian poet, Miss E. Pauline Johnson, is going to be presenting her own poems of Indian life and legends, from her book, The White Wampum. I don’t care for poems myself, but the wife is partial to them. Miss Johnson is going to be wearing her native Indian buckskin and will be appearing with the humorist, Walter McRaye. The wife says it would only cost her 25 cents if she sat in the balcony.

I asked her where she got the idea that I would allow her to be away from the farm on Christmas Day, of all things. To make her feel better, I reminded her of how much I enjoyed her Christmas dinners, and how pleasant it was to sit by the fire with my cider while she and the girls cleared away the dishes. The noise she made had me thinking someone had let something from the barnyard in. Her rebellious streak is commencing to alarm me. —Tom Sheppard’s ancestors can be reached by post at the Caledonia Corner.