Squeezed between rusty memory cogs is a picture of the first time I set out on my own to buy Christmas presents.
Why it loiters there in some cobwebbed crevice I have no clue. But it does. It’s one of my earliest memories of growing up in my barefooted, self-contained tiny universe of Wessington Springs, southwest of Huron.
Those hometown memories came wafting back as I read the obituary of a lady I never knew. Her father Carl, and her uncle Max, owned the Habicht’s Store in Wessington Springs. It was a typical country store back then, long before the impersonal box stores and the Black Friday/Cyber Monday hoi polloi.
The obituary told of Helen Habicht’s life. She grew up in the Springs and then spent her final years in Huron.
When I was 5, Habicht’s Store on the Main Street corner figured into my quest for gifts for my parents and my two sisters.
My shopping excursion was on a gray December day. Then, especially in small towns, it was not uncommon for 5-year-olds to walk alone the three blocks from our house to Habichts, although I suspect now that my mother wasn’t far behind as I set out on my expedition over crunching sidewalk snow.
She had given me a quarter for my shopping spree. As a loss precaution, she tied it in the corner of a handkerchief just as she did Sundays with my few pennies for the church collection tray. If I dropped the coins, the handkerchief made them easy to find.
The tied handkerchief and I arrived at Habicht’s and its imposing false front facade framing a heavy wood and glass front door with a tinkling welcome bell.
During those Depression times, storeowners left their lights off during the day. I remember it was dim inside, and there was an aroma of bread. I was the only one there, except for the clerk and a cat. It was orange colored. I knew because we kids always got an orange in our Christmas stocking we hung on the wooden straight-backed dining room chairs.
They were similar to the chairs that hung from the ceiling at Habicht’s. Rolls of linoleum leaned in a dark corner. Walls were lined with loaded shelves fronted with an aisle of glass cases. On top of one case near the front was a big bronze cash register.
The cases’ glass fronts displayed a panorama of wonderful delights. Their glass countertops were nearly opaque, nicked and incised by decades of cuff buttons, dropped coins, ring scratchings and merchandise tipped and shoved while being bagged or wrapped.
Colorful merchandise was everywhere. A table near the front was layered with the neighboring bakery’s waxed paper-encased bread where the store’s orange cat was snuggling between a loaf and a hand-written sign that said “Day Old – Half Off”.
I surveyed it all, and after several rounds I picked out two yellow pencils topped with trapezoidal pink erasers for my sisters.
A white handkerchief in a neat little square box beckoned in the dim light. It would be my dad’s, for Sunday nose blowings. He had big red handkerchiefs for his 10-hour work days at the elevator down by the tracks.
I found another little box with a tiny bay window on the side showing stems of birthday cake candles of various colors that I thought my mother would like.
The clerk at Habicht’s punched the white keys on the cash register, and it all came to 26 cents. I timidly held up my quarter and the handkerchief in which it was tied. She freed the coin, smiled down and said that would be close enough. And have a Merry Christmas.
I did on that Christmas in the dreary year of 1930s dust and no money. When we opened our presents after Christmas Eve church services where we kids got little brown sacks of ribbon candy and a walnut, my Habicht’s choices drew high praise. Compliments like that were gifts enough, although Santa did leave me a used, silver bike with steer horn handle bars and no fenders that all looked brand-new to me.
I learned to ride it during the rest of that winter, and sometimes I parked it outside Habicht’s while I explored inside. I don’t remember, but perhaps Helen Habicht was there, with the orange cat that smelled like day-old bread.
If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.
