Fiction

By Reggie MacLellan


Based on a True Story

THERE was electricity in the air! Having finished our last exams, we went through the motions of lunch while laughing and shouting at one another.

With our clothes all packed (some a week ago), off we went to the “jitney” and then climbed aboard the Ocean Queen for Moncton. We were going home.

It was Christmas time in 1945. I hadn’t been home since August. In October, I’d turned 16. It’d be good to get home.

By the time we arrived in Moncton, there were no more train connections to Prince Edward Island that day. So I stayed at a friend’s place, and we went to a show. I can’t recall the name of the show, but I remember the song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” playing on the theatre’s PA system as the audience departed.

The next day I boarded a train for PEI. There was plenty of snow and ice as we neared the Northumberland Strait.

Once on the ferry, I was getting really close. We arrived in Borden at 5 p.m., but didn’t reach Alberton, my hometown, until 11 p.m. All that long day, I never stopped anticipating.

Everett, a great neighbor, met me at the train station. My guardians weren’t well enough to hang around there waiting, but they greeted me royally when I arrived home.

After we talked awhile, I saw the new pup, a white puff with a few brown markings. We called him “Rusty”.

I tumbled into bed in my own room. Everything seemed wonderful, clean-smelling, and I finally drifted to sleep.

After breakfast the next day, I was asked to get a Christmas tree. Back then, there seemed to be plenty of places to find one, so off I went with Rusty.

I found a good tree, but Rusty’s legs proved too short and he bogged down in the snow. So I picked him up and tucked him into my jacket pocket.

This picture lives in my mind as a real Christmas happening – the tree, Rusty (in my pocket) and me, heading home with the prize.


This story first appeared in MacLellan's book, The Shoe Box Collection.

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