Evening star., 1936-09-13
BY IRA WOLFERT.

CALLANDER, Ontario, September
ll.-Before the Dionne quintuplets
we're born this had been drowsy coun-
try, its hundreds of miles of farms.
timber and lakes muffling the push
and hustle and jarring chase of the
dollar in the cities far to the east
and south.
Newfoundland has a railroad which
| tells the story of what time used to
mean to this part of the world Two
| trains a week travel across the island.
and when q salesman wants to go
up the hill and see if one Elphese
Renoir has enough biscuit flour to
carry his customers through the Win
ter he tells the conductor and the
train stops as near to Renoir,s as the
tracks will carry it. Then the sales
man trudges off with his sample case
and the train waits.
Renoir may not have seen a strange
face since the cereal and coffee man
came up last Winter. and he wants
to talk. Maybe they have a drink
together and couple of pipes to-
gether and exchange gossip. An hour
drifts by, two, perhaps three. 1t
doesn't make any difference. The
train waits. and with it all the pas
sengers.
Cracker Barrel Philosophers.
And in Callander, of an evening.
the cracker barrel philosophers held
sway in Ken Morrison,s general store.
waving lumpy, earth-worn hands at
each other. pondering distant Toronto S
affairs OF state, discussing the feroci-
GUS plight of the railroads, saying
old Doc Defoe was quite boy, good
as any of those city doctors with
their fancy language and fancy bills.
Outside the wind would drop to
dead calm and the air would crackle
in 50-below-zero cold. Aside from
home and the general store, there was
no place to 60 and BE congenial," no
beverage rosm." The railroad sta
ton had been burned down and never
been rebuilt, the hotel" on Lake
NipiSsing was closed for want of trade
and North Bay, its motion picture
house and hotel lobby was nine bumpy,
icy miles awsy-a days journey be-
hind . farm horse.
Occasionally. young Olivia Dionne
was among them, q thin, brown, soft
eyed man who sat silently, his long,
bony hands couched on his thin knees.
Olivia was pretty nearly the big man
Of the farm district, owner of a 500
acre place. of which 100 acres were
under cultivation, and, year by year,
regularly and placidly as the march
of the seasons, he and his young wife,
Elzire, went about accommodating a
family. Five children now. One had
died. That was too bad, because he
wanted six. Well. he would have six.
Any day now, Elzire, who had been
doing poorly, would give him the sixth.
Conversation Endless.
The days were short then, the con-
versation endless around the oil lamps
of the district.
DOC" Dafoe, a widower some nine
years, his boy off South to school, sat
alone in his small brick home reading.
Most often he sat on q horsehair
Chesterfield in q quiet, pine e-paneled
living room, surrounded by a tranquil
confusion of knick-knacks of a bygone
day.
His collections for the month of
April-the month before Elzire was
delivered of her astounding burden
are said to have been S6.75.
Between July 20 and December 81
of this year. radio contracts, it is said,
will net him $109, 900, minus no COM
mission for agents, since he is his own
shrewd agent. But he no longer gets
as much reading done.
But all that came after Elzire gave
Olivia his sixth" child and 1t proved
to be five Of them at once. The first
thin whimpers from that bed room
were trumpet blasts heard around the
world, and they blew Callander into a
violent new life.
Ledger Tells the Story.
Fat, black figures on North Hims-
worth Townships ledgers tell part Of
the story of the revolution the quin-
tupiets have worked in this region. and
Station Agent p. J. Keeling. reeve of
the township-a position correspond