More humor in Chinuk Wawa: How the priest wound up selling beer
This one’s also in a non-Chinook Jargon language, but it’s from the Chinook newspaper, and it’s quite a funny true experience!
What’s the amazing Dizzy Gillespie got to do with the amazing Father Le Jeune?
(Image credit: Deezer)
Read and enjoy this little treat!
Shall I tell you what I did on my way back? Will you beli[e]ve me, I sold beer on the train…Don’t think bad of me till I tell you…After twelve o’clock I began to get hungry, so I went on the dining car, and had a good dinner, and gave good money for it too…Then I thought I would smoke a cigar, so I went after the news agent on the train.He was not there, but I sat on his seat and began to look for the cigars, found them, and took two or three…The conductor saw me…”Oh, says I, I am not stealing, I put down two bits. You have done me the kindness of giving me a free ride on your train, to repay it to the company I buy some cigars…
=Quite sensible, said the conductor. So I started to smoke a cigar, still sitting in the news agent’s seat. By and by the train stopped at some station…People came in, wanted to buy newspapers.
=Where is the news agent, they asked. =I am the news agent, I said. Just give me the money, gentlemen & I will give you the papers…Some came and bought sardines, others canned salmon…Then some wanted beer. =What? I said. Beer, in a prohibition country like this. The conductor was passing by. =How, says I, dare you allow beer to be sold on your train in a dry belt like this? =Oh, Father, he said, it is only two per cent beer. =Well, I said, if it suits you, all right.
Two bits a bottle…that is how I sold beer on the train. When the news agent came to his seat, I had a little handful of money for him…he gave me salted pea nuts!
— from Kamloops Wawa, April 1917, No. 551, pages 2-3
