Chapter 64

May Bailey to Jessie Buchanan Aug. 3, 1938

Poor Jim Flett looked so disheartened when the School Board rejected Max's proposal that he be appointed vice principal. Without his promotion to vice principal who knows how long he will have to wait to marry that nice teacher from Northbridge? It isn't the usual thing to appoint a shop teacher vice principal. However, Max admits that Clifford Valentine is a competent teacher and certainly capable of fulfilling the duties of the position even if he is a crony of Mr. Grady's.

What interests Mr. Grady is that he is less radical in his political opinions than Max or Jim. Unfortunately, a majority of the board shares Mr. Grady's concerns. If these were different times without such a desperate need for forward thinking and if I didn't know from experience Jim Flett's decency and dedication, I might too.

Vanaver Mainwaring to Grace Mainwaring Aug. 8, 1938

The battalion is now away from the fighting. We are resting in an olive grove. … Harry, Oscar, and I are unhurt. Harry had a close call with a sniper the day before we were sent to the rear. The bullet went right over his head and a little in front of him. He thinks that the brush he was crawling behind at the time prevented the sniper from getting a decent view of him. Don't tell Ida and Johann. It will only make them worry more.

… Tell Maisie that her delicious fruitcake arrived four days before we crossed the Ebro and was gone a couple of minutes after the boxes were opened. It was a little early in the year for that particular dish, but some of the boys who wolfed it down like it was the food of the gods won't ever see another Christmas.

Grace Mainwaring to Sally Henry Aug. 10, 1938

… My heart aches for Ollie and Marjorie. They love their little boy so much and so want to give him a little brother or sister. Marjorie told me today that Dr. Barlow offered to have a colleague talk to a woman whose husband recently died and who is in poor health. She has no family and is looking for a loving husband and wife to adopt her seven-month-old little boy.

Dr. Barlow was hoping that Ollie and Marjorie's finances might have improved since he talked with them last, but no such luck. The garage and gas station still aren't doing well enough to allow them to support another child. Even worse, it doesn't look as though the situation is going to change anytime soon.

Poor Marjorie was in tears by the time she finished telling me about all this. What makes it worse for her is that Dr. Barlow showed her and Ollie photographs of the baby boy. Apparently, he has beautiful grey eyes and the sweetest smile.

My own problems with the Cramps seem pretty small by comparison. Neither has been in a good temper for the past week. Kenneth Baird is coming to New Bedford for the Silverdome Fishing Tournament and Royal Dominion Bank Picnic against the wishes of virtually everyone here. He has apparently taken advantage of his status as a stockholder in the bank and friend of one of the directors to strong arm his way into the picnic as a speaker. Toppy hears from Rebecca who hears from her father who hears from his colleagues in the Northbridge branch of the Royal Dominion Bank that his topic will be true Canadian patriotism.

Kenneth Baird has always been very patriotic-if there's something in it for him. He likes to call making generous donations to both the Liberals and the Conservatives putting country ahead of party. I hope I'm not becoming cynical as I get older, but I suspect it's more a matter of greasing the right palms.

Mr. Cramp bent my ear about Kenneth Baird and his vendetta against New Bedford for thirty minutes yesterday when I came into the Chronicle office to turn in my column. It would be bad enough if it were just him coming to the tournament and picnic, but his pet newspaper editor and Mr. Cramp's hated rival, Dan Spalding of the Northbridge Herald, will undoubtedly be coming with him seeking material for another of his hatchet jobs on New Bedford.

From what Honey tells me, this is nothing new. Even when she and Jack were living in Northbridge in the twenties, his policy was to promote Northbridge as a growing, hustling metropolis-in-the-making while dismissing New Bedford as a decrepit relic of the silver rush days that should have been reclaimed by the bush long ago.

Every time he and Mr. Cramp are together at the annual convention of the Ontario Division of the Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association, he lords it over him that he was once a reporter for the Globe and Mail in Toronto. He considers Mr. Cramp a small-town hobbyist who only pretends to be a crusading editor. After the last convention, I got an earful about how Spalding boasted that he had to buy into the Northbridge Herald and bury himself in small-town Northern Ontario because his hard-hitting exposes put him on the bad side of powerful politicians.

According to Mr. Cramp, it was because his drinking caused him to wear out his welcome in Toronto. Mr. Cramp then mentioned the Northbridge equivalent of the movers and shakers poker game. It was a terrible thing that respectable town fathers should indulge in such shocking immorality. Of course, nothing like that could ever happen in New Bedford.

At that point shameless hypocrisy gave way to a legitimate complaint. Apparently, Kenneth Baird regularly cheats but no one, including Dan Spalding, ever confronts him because all the players are afraid to cross him. Instead, they lick his boots just like everyone else in that town.

I had to explain to Mr. Cramp that not everyone in Northbridge is an admirer of Kenneth Baird. The Rev. Gary Crandall and his flock in the local United Church have raised a great deal of money for the Republic in the teeth of his opposition. Crandall has also spent a lot of time devoting himself to the spiritual welfare of Baird's employees. They are still very sore about how, at the beginning of the Depression, he forced them to take pay cuts, but didn't lower the rent on the slum housing he still expects them to live in.

Mr. Cramp scowled at that last statement. I do have to give him and his wife credit. They did lower their rents a little on their somewhat less run-down properties when it became obvious just how bad the Depression was going to be. Nor did they skimp too much on the maintenance to make up the difference.

Speaking of Mrs. Cramp, she's all but tearing her hair out at this point. The two candidates for CRNB announcer her out-of-town contacts recommended turned out to be a couple of flat tires. She actually suggested yesterday that maybe Pearl Disher wouldn't be so terrible. Maybe she was having a bad day when she auditioned. I had to disagree. "Hire her and any day she's on the air will be a bad day for all of New Bedford."

Next Week: A dizzy guy. Mr. Baird Comes to New Bedford. Grace Speaks for Canada.