FATHER ST. JOHN

In the 1800s, and for a long time after that, the Parish Priest was not only the Pastor of souls but the temporal ruler of the Parish as well. Such a Priest was the first Pastor of St. Joseph's, Father St. John. He was an able and vigorous man and built up a thriving Parish. He was not very popular with the younger members of his congregation, however, because he ordered them not to go out of their homes at night, and he walked the roads every night to make sure that his orders were obeyed.

The story is told that one time a girl and her boyfriend (whose nickname was "Scoggins"), arranged to meet by one of the fish stores to avoid being caught. She got there first and when she saw someone coming towards the store she rushed out and grabbed him by the arm and said, "You took your time coming, Scoggins! What kept you?" Then she realized she was holding an arm covered with fine wool serge and not the rough sweater of a fisherman. Then a cultured voice said, "Now, tell me who is this Scoggins?" Of course, she was marched home to her parents in disgrace.

There is a story too of how a group of young people outwitted Father St. John. This is the way one of the group told it to me when he was an old man. "You know how hard Father St. John was on the young people. Well, one time we thought he had gone to St. John's with his nephew and we decided we'd have a spree. Three of us stole a hen each on our mothers and we got vegetables from the garden and Aunt Mary's girls cooked them for us. Now, Uncle John was deaf and he went to bed right after supper, so Aunt Mary said we could have our scoff there. We decided to eat early in the night rather than late because we wanted to let out the fire. If we didn't it would be too warm to dance. It was some good feed because Aunt Mary's girls were splendid cooks! All the girls cleaned the dishes while the water was hot and put all away. Then someone started to play the mouth organ and we were dancing away, when a young fellow burst in the door shouting, "Father St. John is home. He's coming down the road. I ran the meadows to tell you."

Well, that was some commotion! We blew out the lamps and made for the back door. I pulled on the knob and it came off in my hand and we couldn't get out. We rushed back to the kitchen and got out through the window, but before that we ran into the table and it upset and broke a couple of chairs. Aunt Mary's crowd rushed up the stairs and got into their beds clothes and all. By this time, Father St. John was banging on the front door with his black thorn stick. Aunt Mary woke Uncle John and sent him down to see who was there. He shone the lamp on Father St. John and said, "Father, who'd dead?" (A priest coming to a house was customary if there was bad news to be told). It took some time for Father St. John to make him understand that he didn't bring bad news. By this time Aunt Mary was dressed and bringing another lamp and invited the Priest into the parlor (it was a good thing she didn't invite him into the kitchen!!). He wanted to know why the lamps were burning in her house at 10 o'clock in the night and then went out. She said she supposed the young people all went to bed. He made her go look to see if they were all in. They were, of course. He couldn't understand it.