Other voices: Emerson Carty (EC) Christine Callaghan (CC)

Q: Can you give me your full name?

A: Stewart Erwood Carty

Q: How do you spell your middle name?

A: S…..E-r-w-o-o-d

Q: E-r-w-o-o-d?

A: Yeah.

EC: No, that wouldn’t be right would it?

A: Why yes!

EC: Erwood?

A: Yes. That’s the way it always was spelled.

Q: And Stewart is…..

A: I don’t….

Q: Stewart is S-t-e-w-a-r-t?

A: Right. Correct. Some puts it S-t-u-a-r-t, but it’s not right. It’s S-t-e-w-a-r-t, but most of ‘em all goes by S-t-e-w-a-r-t.

Q: Yep. And who were your parents, Stewart?

A: Ah, Thomas Dinsted Carty.

Q: What’s that middle name?

A: Dinsted.

Q: Dinsted. How do you spell that one?

A: Well you’re smarter than I am, so you’ll have to….I just don’t know just…..

Q: I can look that up somewhere.

A: And it was….I think it was D-i-n-s-t-e-d, I believe. I’m quite sure that’s the way it went.

Q: I’m hearing some names I never heard of before.

A: Yeah. Right.

Q: And so who was your mother?

A: Ah, Edna May Carty.

Q: What was her maiden name?

A: Mitchell.

Q: Mitchell.

A: Right.

Q: Do you remember anything about your grandparents?

A: No. They was all dead when I was born.

Q: All of them.

A: Yeah. All I know is what my father had told about his father and mother. That’s about all, you know. As far as knowin’ ‘em, they was gone before I come around.

Q: Never [rest of sentence inaudible].

A: No. Right. No, no.

Q: And what year were you born?

A: 1914.

Q: And where were you born?

A: I was born right here in Mink Cove.

Q: In Mink Cove?

A: Yeah.

Q: Where was the family homestead at the time?

A: We lived ‘bout three quarters of a mile from the new Consolidated School. There was a road went right back in there, and my father had a big farm back in there.

Q: It’s a road that’s no longer ah….

A: No, it’s all growed up now with everything. Bushes and all. I didn’t like it in there when I was a kid. I wanted to get out where I could see more goin’ on, and I didn’t like it and…. After I got married, well then I built another house in there, and I lived there for about three years and a half. And I said to my father one day….we worked back and forth on the farm…. I said, ah, “I’m going to move out of here.” “What for?” “Well,” I said, “I just don’t like it in here. I want to do a lot of dickering.” And that’s what I’ve done pretty well all my life. And I said, ah, “I’m too far off the road. In the spring it gets muddy and you can’t travel it.” And I said, “In the winter time you get blocked in with snow. No.” I said, “I’m not going to live here.” So I bought another farm. And I bought it next to the Consolidated School. And I just lived there a year, and I was doing fine. And I’d go back and help my father, and then he’d come out and help me. We worked good together. And one day he come out and helped me, and he said that he couldn’t….we was pulling turnips, and he said his hand got so cold he couldn’t hold on the turnips. So we went to the house, and my sister was there with my wife and….found out he had a stroke.

Q: Ah….

A: So, he wanted to walk home, and I said no. So, and my brother was just goin’ over in my woods to cut some lobster bows. So I hollered to him, and he come back, and he took him home and…. Well I had to go every night and morning. And it was a lot of work to it. Along with me own, and I was working for another guy down here ten mile. Well I was up half the night. And ah, none of the rest would come look after him. So then it got to the point that it was me for everything. So then I had to move everything I had back there, and move back in me own house that I had built. And he only lived ah, from October ‘til January, and he was gone. But….if I had a known that, probably I would have tried to done something else. But then in the meantime, I sold the house that I….the farm that I was livin’ on. So I couldn’t….I had nothin’ to move back on.

Q: The one next to the school?

A: Yeah.

Q: Yeah?

A: Yeah. I sold it again.

Q: What side was that….what side of the school? The side where Rodney O’Neil lives?

A: The same side the school’s on.

Q: Yeah?

A: It’s the first….It’s the second house from the school on the side hill. So I sold it.

Q: Who owns it now?

A: Ah, Duncan Gidney.

Q: OK.

A: Yeah. I sold it back to him. And then, after about a few years after that, I still had it in my head that I wanted to move out of there. So, my house is down here next to that fish hatchery.

Q: Yeah.

A: Long white house, forty feet long. I bought that, but it was all adrift. And I built that over three times. And…but, it was better I was on the main road.

Q: Yeah.

A: Because I done a lot of dickering. I traded….I kept a lot of cattle and I kept them back there and some out here and…. And ah, I moved so many every day. I was gone somewhere every day. And ah….and that’s the way she carried on ‘til…. And then I tended….I tended all the exhibitions. Kept a lot of fancy oxen. Mated them well, and trained their horns so that they had nice shaped horns, just alike. And, I done that right up until….well after my wife had the stroke, well then I was anchored. I had to quit. And a lot of ‘em wanted me to put her in a home. Even some of the children. And I said, “No, I ain’t going to do that.” So, she was in the hospital five months and they called me up one day and wanted me to come get her. I said, “Alright, I’ll be up after dinner.” So I went up and got her. And the nurses said to me, said, “Have you got somebody home to look after her that knows how to look after a sick person like that?” She couldn’t lift her head off the pillow. I don’t know why they wanted her out of the hospital so quick. But they had said right along she wasn’t goin’ to live. Well I didn’t believe that. So I went up….we carried her out and put her in the car and I brought her home. And I never had nobody. I never had one soul, not even one of my kids come in to say I’ll wash dishes, or I’ll make a cake, or I’ll make somethin’ or do somethin’. Nobody ever come in here. And I looked after her fourteen years and a half. And when she passed away, the nurses said to me….two nurses said to me, “Well you’ve looked after her all this time. Tell us how you ever done it.” I said, “Very easy.” I said, “I asked the Lord to give me power enough to look after her.” I never kept house in my life. She done that. Cause when we got married, I said….the night before, we had quite a talk. Now I said, “This is the way we’re going to live. No argument, nor anything like that. We’re going to agree. And the first time that we can’t agree, it’s all over. Cause I never was brought up to live that way, and I’m not going to live it now.” So anyway, she….I said, “You look after the house, keep it clean and all, but don’t come out and interfere with my work.” I said, “When I get ready to unload somethin’, you might not want me to unload it, but just don’t say nothin’, because it’s definitely going to go. I’m out to make money, and I’m not going to hold nothin’ around, because the money’s there.” That’s the way we lived all of our life. We had a wonderful life. And I looked after her right ‘til she passed away, because she would’ve done it for me. But I did tell her different times, the way I looked at it, we’d have been probably better off, and enjoyed it better, if it had’ve been me had the stroke, and she’d have been in my place. But she don’t….she didn’t see that, but I could. Because I felt that a woman in her own house, the way I feel about it, that can be more contented, even if she’s got trouble, than a man can. Because when she took the stroke, she spoiled all the enjoyment that we had outdoor. Because wherever we went to an exhibition, from Halifax right straight around to the South Shore, and all through the Valley, she went too. We had a trailer, and we had everything hooked up, so we had comfort and everything. But when she had the stroke, I tried to take her a couple times, and it was too hard a work. You know, you….in a trailer, you can’t turn around. You can’t do nothin’ like that. It’s just push ahead or back up. Oh it got too hard. I just said I can’t do that. I just about give the trailer away to get it out of the door yard, because every time I looked at it, I thought I’d like to go, and I knew then I couldn’t go. And ah, I had two trucks, a small one and a big one, and ah, two pair of oxen. I got clear of everything and stayed right in the house, fourteen years and a half. By times it was hard. I used to lay her down on the bed and cover her up, and go to Digby once a week and buy groceries. And I wouldn’t be gone over an hour, an hour and a half, and come back, and then she’d be up and around. Cause I never let her….I had her so she could go all around the house in a wheelchair after I had her home like, oh, six months. I had her goin’ around in a wheelchair. Oh yeah. And, it’s like I tell a lot of people, I’m….I’m proud of it today. You know, the time would’ve went by anyway, and I looked after her, and she enjoyed it home. So that’s the way it went.

Q: You don’t see that very often anymore.

A: No. No, no. No, but it seemed, when she went, it was like when my cattle went out of the barn, and all my extries, that I had no more interest in that. I don’t think I went in that barn over two or three times after that. Cause it didn’t….there was nothing there. It was gone. And it was the same way after she passed away. I stayed there from August’ til December, and, of course, Emerson [Stewart’s son] wanted me to come up here with him, and it wasn’t very good stayin’ there, and ah…. So then I thought it all over and I said, “Well, I got nothin’ to lose. What’s the good of me stayin’ down here?” Because, I’ve seen me go to bed six thirty at night. Nothing to sit up for. And, after I went to bed, I wouldn’t go to sleep. And I’ve seen me wake up the next morning, never been to sleep all night. But he wanted me to come up here, so then it kind of changed the picture a little bit, you know.

Q: What year did your wife die?

A: Ah, it’s fifteen….fifteen months ago.

Q: Yeah.

A: Right, yeah. But I wouldn’t wish her back, because she suffered so much. And all….once you go through death, surely you don’t want to come back and go through it again, you know…. So that’s what makes life up, I guess.

Q: This farm that was your parents’, is there anything left of it? Is there….

A: No.

Q: Could you walk back there and see a foundation or anything?

A: Oh, well, I suppose there would be. Ah, Emerson and them goes back on the four wheeler and ah, it’s pretty well growed up now. And ah, I kept it a goin’ for quite a few years, and then I got to the point where I didn’t need it. And ah, the real estate dealer come, wanted to know one morning if I’d sell it, and I said, “Sure.” So, I had asked all the kids if they wanted it. No, they didn’t want it no how. Well I didn’t blame them. And ah, so then I sold it. And probably four or five years after it, especially Emerson, a lot of them wished they had it. I said, “Too late now. I asked you.” But it was a beautiful spot once you got in there. A lovely grove of hardwoods all on the back of the mountain, you know, and the house was right up to it and everything and….Oh yeah, it was a good house, and a nice barn, nice big barn, forty….forty seven feet by….forty by forty seven. Oh it was a nice big barn. And I had remodeled it a lot after my father died and cemented all the floors in. But after I got it all done it didn’t interest me. Yeah, I could do with something not near so good, to be on the main road.

Q: So your father was a farmer primarily?

A: Oh, he done that all of his life.

Q: Never a fisherman?

A: No, no, no.

Q: No.

A: No, right, no. I was telling Emerson here the other day, what a change in life. He always kept a nice sharp ax, and he chopped every bit of his wood. And if he come in this area, and was going to cut here, why, if he cut this tree down, and trimmed it all out, and carried it to a place where he could get it easy….and he made a pile there, carried every stick to that pile, ‘til he figured he had enough, what they called a big load for the bob sleds. So he knew every heap he made, he could tell how much wood he had for the year. And he used to cut and pile in the woods, somewhere around fifteen, sixteen heaps. And then when the winter set in good and snow, he’d take the oxen and haul that wood outdoor. But that wasn’t the easy part of it. When I was only a little fellow, I remember what he had to do. He used to take the axe and chop it all into stove wood length. There would be a heap of chips pretty near as big as this room. And then after he got it all chopped up in stove wood lengths, then he had to turn around and split it, and make a big heap up to a point so it would dry good. But, somewhere by oh, tenth, twelfth of April, he had all of his wood all ready for the year.

Q: Wow.

A: That was the year’s wood. Then he was ready to go farmin’. Yeah. And I’ve seen him have the potatoes all in by the last of April.

Q: Wow, that’s early.

A: Oh yeah. Right, yeah. But, at that time, we had terrible winters. But once it started to break, within a week, you’d never know we ever had a hard winter. It would clear out that much you know. So fast. It seemed to get warm and everything. But now our weather is all together changed. Yeah, we had warmer weather in May than we had any time this summer gone by. But there’s that much change in the weather you know. But, always at them times, when I was a young fellow like that, anywheres from twelve to twenty years old, we had snow in October. I know one year that….why it was a beautiful day, and the evening was beautiful….and sometime through the night it started snowing. And the next morning, we had a good two feet of snow. And that was around the fifteenth of October. And from then on, it snowed every day, from that, right up until last of March, first of April. It snowed every day. Sometimes not a lot, but a little every day. And cold.

Q: Yeah?

A: Right. But now it’s changed so, that the ground don’t even freeze. I’ve seen us go….we….down over the mountain where we used to log a little bit, there was a big mirey swamp, and I seen us take the oxen and the bob sled down in there and mire them right in it so we had to un….take ‘em off, unyoke ‘em and lead ‘em out, and run a chain to get the sled back across. It was that soft. That night would come around cold, we could go down the next morning and drive right over it just the same as if you had cement run there. It was that much change. Now they never freeze. They don’t freeze in the world. It don’t matter how cold it gets, they just don’t freeze. So it’s such a change in our weather today. Because they always put up ice all them years, and put it in an ice house for fish and stuff for any fish plants or anything like that through the summer that they used ice. And you could cut ice from December right up until the first of April. Now they don’t….the lakes don’t….some of the lakes never freezes. So, that shows you how the weather has changed, because then there was no fridges, no nothing, you know. And, but today, why, they don’t need ice, you see. And stuff…I don’t know why it is, but stuff won’t even keep. Ah, my father always killed a big beef along about this time of year. And he had a big workshop. He used to hang that in that workshop, and it would stay there all winter.

Q: It was cold enough.

A: Yep. Never seemed to thaw up.

Q: Yeah.

A: And he’d kill a pig and keep out the fresh stuff, and salt the pork, the clear sheer pork, and all that would stay there all winter long, never spoiled. When my mother wanted some meat, she’d tell him, and he’d go take the ax and chop a piece out. And that’s the way they lived, you know, right through. But ah, oh, why today, as I tell a lot of people, you can go buy meat and put it in the fridge, and after about five days, it’s spoiled, even right in the fridge, unless it’s froze, you know. But there’s something about the air that has changed a way of living you know.

Q: I can remember raising a pig and it was a big concern how to hang it…we were doing hams and stuff…

A: Oh yes, right.

Q: No place cold enough.

A: No, right.

Q: I had to clean out my fridge….

A: Yeah, right.

Q: But then that was too cold.

A: Yeah, I know my father used to take the hams, and he had some kind of a stuff he mixed up, and rubbed them every morning, I think it was for nine mornings….

Q: Yeah.

A: After that, you could hang ‘em anywhere and they’d keep, you know. And ah, but you don’t do none of that today. Hams today is all used fresh, you know, right. Yeah. Oh the world has changed something terrible to what it used to be, yeah. Right.

CC: Do you remember what kind of stuff he would rub on the ham, Stewart?

A: Pardon?

CC: What kind….what was that mixture that he rubbed on the ham?

A: Well I don’t know really what it was. He…I know there was brown sugar in it and some other stuff he put in it, I suppose, some spices of some sort and….

Q: Saltpeter sometimes in those days.

A: Yeah, yeah they did use a lot of saltpeter then. When they pickled beef, they always dropped a little saltpeter in it and they said it give it a good color.

Q: Yeah.

A: Brightened it up you know. It wouldn’t be faded like…. And they had different remedies then that they haven’t got today, yeah. My mother in the winter time, always kept Vicks and camphorated oil in a dish on the stove. Of course they used a wood stove, and she’d have that on the back of the stove. Any time you’d come in the house, you could smell that. And if any one of them, the kids, had a cold, she done her own doctoring.

Q: Can you remember some of the things she did?

A: Well, she ah, she used a lot of Vicks and camphorated oil. She’d heat that and bathe you all over your chest if you had a cold. And if it got too bad, she’d make mustard….a mustard plaster up. One time, years ago….I was only four years old at the time….there was a flu, very raging all over everywhere. A pile of people died. And ah, my oldest brother was twenty one years old. And ah, he wanted to earn some extra money. He wanted to buy a nice drivin’wagon for….he had bought a nice horse, and he wanted to earn money enough to buy a nice driving wagon. But my father had one, but he didn’t want to use that. He wanted one of his own, cause I think eventually, he figured someday he was going to get a place of his own, and start out on his own. So, there was a job over in Saint John. So he went over there and went to work. And he wasn’t there no time at all when, the flu was so raging, he took sick and got pneumonia, and died right there.

Q: Oh.

A: Yeah. And ah, but my mother always said that if he’d have been home, “I would’ve saved him.” Because I remember, I was only four years old, and there was only my mother and I that never had the flu. And all the rest of the family was in bed for about three to four weeks, and she doctored every one, even to my father. And the neighbours used to come and look after the cattle for him. And, but today, you’d lay there and die. Nobody wouldn’t come near today, you know. But that was the difference in them times. Everybody tried to work with one another, you know. And a lot of them, a lot of the younger crowd thinks today that we got a lot better way of living, but I can’t see it. Cause I watched how that….different ones would go visit somebody on a special day, and then a special day there’d be so many come visit the rest. You know, they….people seemed to be more friendlier. Today a lot of people don’t even want to talk to you unless there’s some money involved. So, the world has changed so much that it’d just scare you, right. Yeah. But she brought ‘em all around. She worked awful hard, but ah, she brought ‘em all around. My, she had the house fumigated all the time, you know, which I believe helped a lot of it you know. But you take, if you got an awful cold on your chest and all, if it gets bad enough, you put a mustard plaster on it, and it’ll break it up, you know. But they don’t believe in that today, you know. It’s like, years ago, you broke your ribs, they strapped you all up. Today they won’t strap you, you know. Things is so much different, you know, that I can see. Yeah.

Q: Was your mother typical….do you remember her being like everybody else’s mother at the time, or was she known for her ability to nurse people….

A: Well no, I think….I think the majority of people was that way, you know. It was one way of life that someone done. And once in a while you’d see….I know there was a couple of women in this neighbourhood here that was ‘bout as good a nurses as you would want to find. And if there was anybody real sick, they was there. And they would come today and come tomorrow ‘til they got better, you know. And ah, I know I had a second cousin, just a young boy, and oh, he was sick for a long while. And they done everything to him, couldn’t help him. And my wife’s ah, grandmother, she was, you might say, a good doctor. And she started tending him, rigging up different kinds of stuff to give him. He got right better and he lived for years, you know. She was just that kind. And then there was another woman up the road….if there was some woman goin’ to have a baby…..she was right there whether the doctor got there or not, she was there. She….

Q: Was she known as a midwife?

A: Yeah, right. Yeah.

Q: What was her name, do you remember?

A: Annie Hersey.

Q: Annie Hersey.

A: Yeah, right, yeah. And the other woman that doctored around a lot….she was really good….that was Margaret’s grandmother. That was Helen Hersey. Yeah. Right. Yeah, but most of them today don’t know nothin’. They don’t know nothin’ at all. My!

Q: Your….ahm, it sounds like you had a big spread in your family. How many children did your parents have?

A: Ah, there was eight of us.

Q: Yes?

A: There was eight, yeah. And they’re all dead but my brother and I. I got one brother left. He just passed his ninetieth birthday the twenty seventh of October. He’s smart and around, drives his car to Digby and everything, yeah.

Q: Are you….Oh, that’s Ellsworth!

A: Yeah.

Q: That’s your brother.

A: Yeah, right.

Q: I heard his birthday on the radio.

A: Yeah, right. Yeah. Him and I’s the last two.

Q: And you were the two youngest?

A: Yeah.

Q: Of the family

A: Yeah. My mother had me when I was forty eight….uh, when she was forty eight.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah, not me forty eight. When she was forty eight….when she had me.

Q: Well to have a twenty one year old brother when you were only four….That’s a….

A: Yeah, right.

Q: ….A big spread there.

A: Yeah, he was….he was the oldest.

Q: He was the oldest.

A: Yeah, right.

Q: So that must have been a big blow to your mother to lose her first born son at twenty one.

A: Oh yeah. And they couldn’t go to the funeral. They couldn’t go to nothing. He was shipped across from Saint John to Digby, and there was another man that my father knew well. He was a druggist, and he interceded for everything. So that took quite a care off of them, cause by the time he died, my father was in bed with the flu.

Q: They couldn’t go to the funeral because everyone else had the flu?

A: Oh no. That’s right. They was all sick in bed, you know. Oh it was raging at that time, but…. All I knew enough was play around the house. I was four years old, you know. Right. But there’s been an awful lot of changes in that time. Yeah. But they all lived….the whole family lived to a good age. My oldest sister lived ‘til she was ninety nine. And ah, our other sister died at ninety seven. And ah, there was two boys that died the youngest. They was eighty one and eighty two. But then Ellsworth and I’s got them all beat, as far as the boys are concerned.

Q: Did they all stay around here when they became adults?

A: Ah, no. No, I had one sister that lived in the States. She lived in Lexington, Mass. And I had another sister that lived down in Yarmouth, in Carleton. And ah, one…. one of the boys that died lived here in Sandy Cove. And the other one had lived here pretty well all of his life, and after he got in his fifties, he ran afoul of a woman. And she had a little money and….from Philadelphia. And ah, he married her, and then they….they moved down, ah, down below Virginia, I think it was. They moved down there, and he died down there. And then she come back here, and she was only here a little while when she passed away.

Q: What was it that drew so many people from this area to go to Massachusetts at one time, like your sisters?

A: I don’t know. There must have been more work or something. And then if any women went there, why, they got married there you see. And that’s the way it went off, you know, but…. Years ago, it didn’t seem to have any job for to get into the United States to go to work, you know. I’ve seen men here years ago, go to the States, and only be there a little while, and call his wife over there, and they never come back. Sold their home, and it was there home over there.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah, a pile of people went. But you don’t see it today. Of course they’re stricter today.

Q: Changed the immigration laws.

A: Oh yeah, right, yeah. Couldn’t do it. But then, ah, I know one time, there was a man left here and went over there, and they asked him at the immigration, what he was going to do over there. He said he was a fish buyer. And he wasn’t no fish buyer at all, but he went over there and went to work. And after he was over there a while, he called his wife, and she went over. They died over there.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah, lived the rest of their life over there. Oh, family after family moved off the Neck here, and I suppose other places too. They moved to the States and made their home there. Yeah.

Q: So as the…. you were the absolute baby of the family.

A: Yeah.

Q: You were the very youngest.

A: That’s right.

Q: Your parents were older parents to you.

A: Oh yeah. By the time I come along, they was getting’ up. Yeah, right. Yeah, my father was…..he was seventy in June, and died in, ah, third of November….ah, third of January, and he was seventy in June, yeah.

Q: And when did your mother die?

A: She died when, oh, probably five years later. She was about eighty two when she died.

Q: So when you were a baby, she didn’t have all eight children living at home by that point?

A: No, some of them was getting out you see, by the time I…. My oldest sister never left home.

Q: No?

A: She never got married….

Q: No?

A: ….And she always stayed home. Yeah, right, yeah. And when I….when I moved, she moved. And ah….and then, after a while, she….she went over to the States to her sister’s and worked a little while over there, and she come back in the summer and she come home, and she said to me, she said, ah, “I’d like to have a little place of me own.” Said, “I got a little money.” I said, “Yeah?” So, she wanted to know if I would intercede for her. So I did. I bought her a building spot, and then started to build her a house. So I built her a house, put everything in it, and she lived there for quite a few years. And then, she turned around and give it over to one of my sons, and he was supposed to look after it. But after he….he’s like all the rest….once they get it in their hands, it’s different. So then she went….then he put her in Tideview, which she never liked it. But I said, “Well it’s what you done. You put yourself here yourself.” So, she died there.

Q: Wow.

A: Yeah. But she never liked it there. Never. Yeah.

Q: Where did you build the little house? Was that in Mink Cove?

A: Yeah. Maybe you noticed coming down. There’s a trailer coming down the hill, to the foot of the hill, on that side….a trailer, house trailer….

Q: Yeah.

A: Well, just across the road from that was the house I built. It’s Emerson’s son’s got it now. He had bought it from my….one of my sons.

Q: Yeah.

A: And he’s built a big piece on it now. But it was only eighteen by twenty two. That’s what it was, and Then after he bought it, why he’s built a big piece on it and everything. Emerson’s second boy, Ian, yeah.

Q: So, can you give me a picture of your father’s year as a farmer, how the year went around? He had the….he’s got all the wood done by April….

A: Oh yeah.

Q: I’m curious to know why he used an ax for everything. Were there never any saws?

A: There wasn’t none then. No saws.

Q: Just a sharp ax?

A: But, a few years after I was big enough to know how he got the wood….a very few years after that, there was a saw come out that they called a buck saw.

Q: Yeah?

A: He bought one of them. Then he made a saw horse, and put the wood on it, and sawed it all up by hand with that buck saw.

Q: That’s a one…one person saw?

A: Yeah, right. Oh yeah, it was a big high one about that high, and it had a wooden frame through the middle, and a wooden frame on each end, and the blade hooked into the bottom on it. You…you went back and forth with her like that. And ah, well then probably in about three to four years after that, somebody got a sawing machine.

Q: Yeah.

A: And then we got the sawing machine to come and saw her all up. Took about eight, nine hours to saw up his year’s wood, already for blocks. And then he’d go right to work splittin’. Yeah, right. Oh yeah, that was a change in it. My, yes.

Q: Did you ever hear of a Blenkhorn ax?

A: That’s what he used. That’s exactly what he used.

Q: Yeah, I’ve heard they’re the best.

A: Ah, but he didn’t want a double bitter.

Q: No?

A: He wanted a single ax.

Q: Yeah.

A: Right. Yeah, I knew what that was like. And he kept a good one. And he always had it sharp. And out front, in front of the house, there was a big wooden platform, and every day when he’d come home at dinner time, he stuck the corner of the ax in this platform, and the handle would stand up.

Q: Yeah.

A: So at that time, they had a big Collie dog, and big fluffy hair and all. So I went outdoor on the platform, and the ax was sticking in the platform, and the dog was sittin’ on the platform with his tail out like that. And whatever possessed me, I never know….I’ve thought of it many times….I picked the ax up, went like that, and cut his tail off. But I’m telling you, when I seen the blood, I wasn’t long sticking the ax back. And I went right in the house, and they had a bedroom downstair way in the back end of the house. I crawled right underneath of that.

Q: Did you get in trouble?

A: No, no, they….oh, well, they scolded me quite a lot, but I mean it didn’t get as bad as I thought it was. Ah, I felt worse after I done it, but I never thought nothin’ of it. Just the same as if it was somethin’ that I had to do and….

Q: Because it was there.

A: Oh, yeah, and just the curi….I picked it up and just wanted to see how sharp it was, I guess. And I just cut his tail off. Well when the blood started to come, I tell you, I wasn’t long goin’. Oh yeah.

Q: Did the dog heal nicely?

A: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, healed right up. Course I only cut about that much off of him you know, but did it bleed. Oh, I’ve thought of that a good many times. Yeah.

Q: So besides getting the wood….you just did your….your father just did your family’s wood? Did he do wood for any other families?

A: No.

Q: Just took care of your own family’s wood.

A: Yeah, right.

Q: And that was done by April. Then it was time to plant?

A: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, he raised a lot of vegetables and stuff. He ah, would have, oh, probably a hundred bushel of carrots, and he always raised a thousand bushel of turnips. And they was all white….all yellow turnips. And ah, he didn’t plant ‘em too early. Not the turnips, because they’d get tough. And ah, he would sell so many of the carrots in the fall, and he’d put a few in the basement of the house. And then the rest that was overrun….he always figured on about fifty bushels of carrots….that he’d just clear the dirt away, just a little bit….and drop them carrots all right in one heap, and bring ‘em up kind of to a peak, all the way around.

Q: Outside?

A: Yeah.

Q: This was outside in the garden.

A: Then he would turn around and cut quite a lot of fir brush, and lay all over them carrots. And after he got ‘em all covered good, but the top part….he’d leave out about six, eight inches open….and then he’d take the shovel and put about six inches of dirt all over that brush, ‘til he got right to the top. And they would stay there all winter ‘til everything thawed up in the spring. And when he took everything away, the top ones would have sprouts on ‘em an inch, two inches long. Well that’s when they would sell good.

Q: Yeah?

A: Everybody wanted carrots then, fresh after they stayed there all winter. You could take one of them big carrots, oh, about that long, and throw it up against something, and it would split in a dozen pieces, because they was so firm and brittle like. Oh, they was beautiful then. And he always….he always ah, made heaps of yellow turnip, and put about a hundred bushel, fifty in each one, all winter long. And they would sell great in the spring. That’s where their….he picked up any cash, you see.

Q: Yeah.

A: Right, yeah. And he always raised, oh, a hundred barrels of potatoes. Sold them all the time, right from diggin’ time right up until spring, you know. He always got clear of every one.

Q: Where did he store the potatoes? Same way?

A: Oh yeah….No, he always kept the potatoes under cover.

Q: Under cover.

A: Yeah, right. He never planted….preserved any outdoors.

Q: No.

A: No.

Q: Were these heaps of carrots and turnips….most of the heap was above ground?

A: Oh yeah, oh yeah, sittin’ right on top of the ground. He’d just move hardly any dirt or anything, just enough to get the new dirt, and drop ‘em right in that dirt. And then, what he put the fir brush for, because there was more brush on the limbs that he put on, and the dirt wouldn’t go through ‘em. He didn’t want the dirt to go through the brush into the vegetables.

Q: Yeah.

A: You see. So he made sure he used a lot of small fir brush, which made a coverin’ over top of them, you see, so the dirt wouldn’t sift through. And about six inches of dirt, and it would never freeze right through to the carrots. There never was one froze. And you could feel it steamin’ up out of that hole.

Q: Yeah?

A: Yeah.

Q: A little hole up on the top?

A: Yeah, roughly about six inches hole in the top, and they would breathe through that, yeah. And they kept wonderful. I don’t know whether they would today or not, the way the air is and everything today. Probably they’d all rot, you know, right? But that was the way things was at that time. And I think it was really planned for the weather to be that way, because at that time, they had no fridges, they had no nothing. And the weather was suitable for that kind of living. But today, why, it’s like getting ice. You couldn’t freeze the water today to get ice, you know, but then it was no problem at all. My gracious, get it out of the lake, you could always get it anywheres from twelve to sixteen inches deep, you know. And they cut….

Q: Where did they cut the ice around here? Off of what lake? We’ve heard about it in Lake Midway.

A: Well, years ago, before my time, my father said, there’s a couple of lakes here over the mountain. And there was a fishing village right back there on Bay of Fundy shore. And they used to cut ice up on that mountain, back where them lakes was. And then they had an ice house that they put it in, and done the same thing with sawdust and all, you know. And that was their ice for all summer long for the fishermen there. And there was a pile of fishermen. I know, one time, that there was a man fishing back there, and ah, he lived right up here. And he went out….they had a weir in Sandy Cove to catch herring, you know. And he went out and got a salt bag full. He was a very strong man they said. And he put it on his back, and from the time he left Sandy Cove ‘til he got back to my father’s place, he never took it off his back. And he stopped over there and dropped it off and come in the house and had some breakfast. And then when he got through, he put it back on his back and took it back here to where they was fishing.

Q: Where’s this fishing community? It’s one that doesn’t exist any more?

A: No, no. No, no, it’s all….

Q: Was it behind Mink Cove on the Bay of Fundy?

A: Yeah, right, yeah. But it’s all done away with now. No. They had….they had fish houses, and in the summer, there was different men that took their wives and their children and went back there and stayed oh, two or three months in the summer, you know, but ah….

Q: Similar to the camps that I’ve heard about on St. Mary’s Bay.

A: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, pretty well, but this was all on the Bay of Fundy.

Q: But they kind of cut through your parents’…. your farm to get back there, or not exactly?

A: No, they….there was a government road that connects just up the road here ah, that went right straight through. One piece of property right straight through to the shore. The government had it then but….and they kept it in repair so they could travel it with oxen, wagons, you know. Cause that’s how they hauled all their fish out and everything from there, and ah hauled their salt back there and everything. It was all done with oxen. Yeah. And some of them would haul them fish clear to Digby, you know, at one time, and ah, but, as time went on, it….they kept droppin’ out of there fishin’ and it got so that they quit altogether. Some of them got too old to fish, and the younger crowd wouldn’t do nothin’ like that. They’d get it more even….easier to do, you know.

Q: And maybe they wouldn’t do that because they could fish out of Sandy Cove maybe?

A: Oh no. Oh no. Right, yeah.

Q: So was there a little cove back there, or did it have a name?

A: Well no, not really. It was just a place where the cliffs wasn’t high, and they was low. And it’s like all on the Bay of Fundy shore. You can go from Sandy Cove right through to East Ferry and there’s places there that there’s no cliffs there and there’s flat land that you can walk right out in the water you know, and then you go along again, and you got cliffs for half a mile.

Q: Yeah.

A: Well that’s the way the shore lines up. But this was just a place where it was just like a cove made in, and there was no big cliffs, a flat, and they laid poles down and made waves, dragged their boat up and down on.

Q: They had to haul their boat in and out every day.

A: Oh yeah, right, yeah.

Q: When’s the last time anybody ever fished that way on the Bay of Fundy?

A: Oh, gee. It would be pretty near before my time.

Q: Yeah.

A: I’d say it’s been sixty seventy odd years ago. Maybe eighty years ago. I remember some of ‘em being back there fishing, but not very much. I would say it would be roughly seventy five years ago probably since any of ‘em fished back there. One time….but they used to have to keep a…..somebody had to, out of the lot, had to keep a pair of oxen back there while they was fishing, so when they’d come in….that they’d have the fish all in the boat, they’d hook the oxen on the boat and haul her up to high water. And then they had things made that they could ah….a big tub with handles….had it rigged on the handle that it’d take two men, one man on one end and one on the other, and they’d fill that tub full of fish, and carry it up into their building to dress it. And ah, but in the later years, the government put an engine back there for them.

Q: Yeah.

A: And ah, then after they all quit fishing there, well the government took it out of there and moved it somewhere else, and that cleaned everything out of there, buildings and all. It all went adrift, yeah.

Q: Would it be a fisherman that owned those oxen….

A: Oh yeah.

Q: Or would they have to call on somebody else?

A: No, no. Mostly….mostly they all had something at them times, you know. Everybody had a pig. Everybody had a cow. And ah, when they cut….when they all burned wood, so they would ah….if it wasn’t some of their relations, they would chop wood on somebody else, and for to get the wood, they would chop wood for him to pay for it. And it was the same way hauling the wood. You’d haul wood for somebody, and then he’d come chop your wood, you know. They had no money, so it all had to be a return thing.

Q: So you say you and your father worked well together. So you grew up on the farm….

A: Oh yeah, I was with him from the time I was born ‘til he passed away. Yeah, yep. It seemed….I often said, “Why me?” But it always seemed to be me.

Q: Yeah.

A: Right. Yeah.

Q: So your father….he planted all these things, and you’ve told us about how he made some of his living farming….

A: Well he made all of his living right on that farm.

Q: Yeah?

A: Yep. All of it, yeah.

Q: What was more important to making a living, animals or the vegetables?

A: Well, I would say with him, probably it was half and half.

Q: Mm hmm.

A: But he kept a lot of cattle.

Q: Yeah.

A: Oh, probably thirty, thirty five head all the time, you know. But I would say that he made half and half. I would say about the same thing. But then when I got bigger, so I could take her over, well then I stepped the cattle racket up quite a lot higher, and….

Q: And dropped the vegetables down?

A: Yeah well after I got into it, I quit altogether. I never done any of it, ‘cause I didn’t like that kind of work. And ah, but after I got big enough, even when he was living, oh when I was about sixteen, well I started right in dickering in cattle. And ah, he was always willing, but I always showed him what the profit was and give it back to him. I started out on his, not mine, because I didn’t have nothing.

Q: Yeah.

A: But ah, I would take one of his critters, or even his oxen, and sell them, and go buy another pair. And if I saved fifty dollars, or whatever, he got the fifty dollars.

Q: Yeah.

A: I never took one penny from my father in my life. Not one penny, nor he never give me one.

Q: So he wasn’t….he didn’t do any cattle trading himself?

A: No, very little. Unless someone….before I took over, unless someone come to the house and bought something….other than that, they stayed there until someone come. He never done no dickering. But there was always some….but then his….a few years come on, why, it got to be a real good business. Oh my, it got to be a good business, my yes, yeah.

Q: So your father lived to see that develop?

A: No, no.

Q: No.

A: No, right. No I broke quite a few pair of steers of his, broke ‘em good so you could work with them alone, or anything. And someone would know about it, and they’d come buy ‘em from me, and then I’d start in with another pair for him. But I done that until I got married. And when I got married I said, “This is it. I go to work for myself now.” So then….I had a few cattle by that time, of me own, and ah, I had been married a little over a year, and ah, I had a truck. And the war come on, and they got….vehicles got to be out of all reason. And ah, I said to my wife one night, I said, “Vehicles is getting high.” I said, “I’ve got a good will to sell my truck.” “Oh!” she said, “What will we do?” I said, “I’ll do just the same as I did before I had one. I will walk. They’re going to drop down in price some day, and I’ll be ready when they drop down.” So it was only a day or two when a garage from Digby called me, said, “I heard you was going to sell your truck.” And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I’ll be right down.” So he come right down. I had paid five hundred dollars for it, and had it a year and ten months. The tires was wore right through to the canvas, and the motor was pretty near all wore out. But to look at the truck, you’d swore she just come out of the factory. I was….I trucked all the time with it, hauling cattle and everything I could haul to make a dollar, but I took care of it, and I never had a mark on it. So he come and said, “What do you want for it?” I said, “I want…. I think it was four hundred and seventy five dollars.” I had only paid five a year and ten months before that. He said, “I’ll give you four fifty for it, and take her right now.” I said, “Give me your money.” So….

Q: You didn’t dicker.

A: No, I let her go, ‘cause I knew I was doing well. So he took her and went. He said, “Want me to take you home?” “Oh no,” I said. “I got to walk anyways, so I might as well walk anyway now.” So I….my wife was living with her father and mother. I hadn’t got the house all built. So I went down and I told her. Oh she felt quite bad. And I said, “Well, I can’t help it.” I said, “I gotta make some money, and the only way I can see,” I said, “I can’t buy tires for it, ‘cause they’re rationed now.”

Q: Yeah.

A: And I said, “I can’t afford to put a motor in it.” So I said, “What was the good of it?” So in the morning or two after that….I used to come out and stay with her at night and go back to my father’s daytimes and work….So one morning I got up, and going home and I stopped in a neighbour’s house, and he was left alone, and he had some cattle he wanted to sell, to get them right out of there quick. And I was right in the battle. I had the money, and I bought ‘em right there.

Q: This is the money from selling the truck.

A: Exactly.

Q: Yeah.

A: And one was a nice big Durham cow, right ready to drop her calf. I led her home and put her in the barn. I said, “You keep all the young cattle for about another week ‘til I get squared away.” He said, “OK.” So I paid him for the whole works. I had money left out of my truck. And I had ah, oh I had six head of cattle, and still had money left out of my truck.

Q: You were rich.

A: Well then I was gettin’ up so I had about twelve head of cattle of me own. So then I started in dickering more, and the more I dickered, the more money I was picking up. I walked. Gee, I walked one time from Edinburg….no, Saint Bernard, clear home in one day.

Q: Yes.

A: And then another time, to make any money….there was a man that lived over on the other side of Sandy Cove….he wanted me to go with him, and I went with him. And he bought a pair of oxen in Clementsvale, and I walked ‘em home.

Q: You walked the oxen home?

A: Yep, from Clementsvale. For two dollars. And I tell some of them today, and they’ve said, “Well you was crazy! For two dollars.” I said, “Two dollars then was worth as good as a hundred today.” Yeah right, yeah. Oh yeah, but it was great sport. Well then about, oh probably three to five years after that, I’d made money enough that I could do a little more. So there was a truck that a guy had in Digby. He wanted to sell it, eight hundred dollars. So I bought that, and I kept that a year and a half. Then I started in trading vehicles. I can’t tell you how many hundred vehicles I’ve had. I’ve had a pile of new cars. After I moved out of there and sold that place and got out here, why we had a new car or a new truck every two years. Brand new every two years. And my wife could go wherever she wanted to go in the car, or if she wanted to take the half ton, she could take that. And then I had a ton besides to haul my oxen with, you know. We got along great. Had a wonderful time, you know. I stopped all that walking and everything. I’ve seen me….I’d do all my chores up by about eleven o’clock, and we’d get some dinner, and we was all ready to start. She’d take what kids we had and put in the truck with me, and away we’d go. I always kind of planned to be home by six o’ clock at night to do my work. And I’ve seen me go buy two pair, and bring one pair home, and the next day or two, sell that pair and go back and get the other one, and sell them before I got home. They…oh it was great work. My, to turn them over so quick, you know. Oh yeah. And what made it more saleable, I could make me own yokes for ‘em, and shoe me own cattle. And that made it….that kind of….you could take a pair of steers that had never been handled, you…..[missing a small bit of audio here.]

CD2

Q: So at what point did oxen become a necessity for getting things done, and then, but then at a certain point, they….

A: Well see, before tractors come out, that’s all there was.

Q: Yeah.

A: Some horses, but more oxen than anything else. And you see, years ago, before my father’s day, in my grandfather’s day, they still used oxen, but they all was rigged by what the called a bow yoke, a yoke….they use ‘em in the United States now….and a bow comin’ up here. And that’s what they used. Well when my father got big enough to take over, there was a few around that made head yokes to fit their head and their horns and all. And then she kept a goin’ bigger all the time until they….everybody used all head yokes. And United States has always used neck yokes. But these last twenty years, there’s a lot of ‘em for exhibitions, has come here and bought oxen, that’s in the head yoke. Ah, about, oh it’s about eight or ten years ago, I sold a nice pair over to New Hampshire, all geared up and all. And I was talkin’ with him about a year ago. He still had ‘em, but he said they was gettin’ too big, and they was weighing up to forty hundred. And he said they’re getting too big, but he said, “I awfully hate to part with them.” He said, “I never had a pair that I thought as much of as them.” But I had ‘em broke good. You know, they was mannered good and everything. And I told him when he come that day and looked at them, I said….I told him what I had won with exhibitions with them. I was top, and how much I hauled according to their (half?). He said, “I’m not interested in their hauling.” He said, “They’ll never be haulin’ nothing.” He said, “I just want ‘em for pets, and take ‘em around and show ‘em.”

Q: Yeah.

A: And that’s all he’s ever done with ‘em. Yeah, oh, they went in a great home, yeah.

Q: Are the cattle that….the oxen that you see at exhibitions, are they capable of doing the work that oxen used to have to do….

A: Oh yeah.

Q ….Or is it a different thing?

A: Oh no, no. Same thing.

Q: They could.

A: Yeah, same thing, yeah right. Yeah, yeah.

Q: In your opinion, were they more versatile than the tractor was that replaced them?

A: Well, not today.

Q: No.

A: Because you see, if they’d a had that then, they didn’t have the facilities to put a road through the woods, so you’d be anchored all the time, you see. But today they’ve got machinery that they can go right through your woods, no matter what it’s like, and within two days, you can drive a touring car through it.

Q: Yeah.

A: But you see, back then, there was nothing. That’s all you had, you know. And if you’d a had a small tractor, it’d a been on wheels, and in the snow you’d a been stuck, because the snow was so deep. One time, I wanted to buy a pair of steers, and my brother that went down in the States that died, he said, “I’ll go with you.” And, oh, it was real winter weather. We got up at four o’clock in the morning, and it was cold. And we walked on the other side of the bay to Plympton, and we got there about four o’clock in the afternoon, just walking. They used….was driving mail here all on Digby Neck, all by horses. And the night before we left, they come from Digby with a pair of horses, and just got far as Waterford. That’s just a little above your place.

Q: Yeah.

A: To Orrie Speight’s.

Q: yeah.

A: They was there a whole week before they ever moved them horses. They couldn’t get the road shoveled out. And then they was going through fields and pastures and everything else. And by the time they’d get one place shoveled out, the next place was blocked in worse than ever, because….I seen it down here, that there’d be a crowd here shoveling up, and another crowd shoveled it away. By the next morning, it had more in it than it did the day before. Them was what you call winters.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah. And we was two days….I bought a pair of steers there….and we had to lead them. We couldn’t keep them in the yoke because there was too much snow. And we was two days, from just over here to Plympton, to get back to my farm. We was two days just gettin’ home. Oh, we was out in the woods, we was everywhere to get clear of snow banks. Yeah, that’s what the weather was like then. No wonder it froze. Today they don’t have nothin’ like that.

Q: Did your father have horses also, or just cattle?

A: Just one.

Q: Just one.

A: Just one.

Q: To do….?

A: Well, if they wanted to go for a sleigh ride….

Q: Yeah.

A: Or, like in the summer, use the horse for rakin’ hay or cultivatin’ the vegetables and things like that, they kept one horse. But I had a few pair of horses along with the oxen, because a lot of times, I could do the work faster, and I was alone. And sometimes I didn’t have ‘em broke good enough that they’d work all what I wanted to do alone from behind them, so I….after my father died, I bought a pair of horses, and I had a few pair of horses. And then I…..then I….they was the more important to me than the cattle was. When someone come along and wanted one, I’d….whichever one they wanted, I’d take it out and let it go, go buy another one. Yeah, I liked that. And I used to buy a lot of cars. And different ones seemed to want me to go buy ‘em a good used second hand car. So I’d go buy ‘em a car. And I was in with a garage man that sold General Motors, and I always liked General Motors the best. And I’ve seen me go up and bring five of his vehicles down and put ‘em in the door yard, but within a week or two, I’d sell every one of them. So I mean, it made it good business with me when I wanted a new one.

Q: Yeah.

A: It cut the price down enough, well…. But I kinda enjoyed that. Anything that I could buy and sell, I loved that, oh yeah.

Q: What about school? Haven’t heard anything about school.

A: No, because I hated that in my sight.

Q: You hated it.

A: Yeah, right, yeah.

Q: But your mother must have made you go to school a while.

A: Oh, well yeah. I went ‘til I was in Grade Eight.

Q: Yeah.

A: But I hated it. I know one night, I hated it so bad, that I didn’t come home. And I went off in the woods, and I didn’t intend to go home. But when dark set in and everything, why things seemed a little different then, so then I had to come home. But I….I didn’t do that again. I got quite a trimmin’ for it, but it didn’t….it didn’t help me any. Because then I thought, and I’ve thought of it since, for what they said and done, and scolded me for it and made me feel worse, and I said, “Maybe tomorrow night I won’t come home.”

Q: Yeah.

A: And I had it in my head as a young boy, to go to the shore and jump off so I wouldn’t have to go to school.

Q: Ohh.

A: You know it was getting quite bad. So then, oh, it straightened up after a while, but…. I never liked that. I said, “There’s a better way to make a living.” And I’ve never had no trouble to make a living. And ah, but ah, I didn’t like going to school. No way.

Q: So technically, your parents’ farm was in Mink Cove or Sandy Cove?

A: Was I what?

Q: Your farm, your parents’ farm was actually in Sandy Cove or Mink Cove?

A: Well it was in between the two of them.

Q: Yeah.

A: It was so far off, I don’t know which way I could explain it. But, all their groceries they bought was in Sandy Cove. There was two stores there. And their mail all come to Sandy Cove. That was their address. And ah, that pretty well was their main place. And if there was any relatives, they was in Sandy Cove. They had very little in Mink Cove, you know. But as far as the place being, you couldn’t really say it was Mink Cove or Sandy Cove, because it was kind of right in between…..right on the borderline is what it was. It would…if it was surveyed out, it would pretty well come right in the middle of it, the borderline between Sandy Cove and Mink Cove.

Q: Was your school in Sandy Cove? The school you went to was the Sandy Cove one?

A: Yeah, right, yeah.

Q: Did Mink Cove also have a school?

A: Oh yeah.

Q: Yeah.

A: Oh yeah. We went to school here in Mink Cove.

Q: OK.

A: Oh yeah, we went to school here.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah. Even my oldest daughter went to school here. Did you Emerson?

EC: Yeah.

A: Yeah, Emerson went to school here.

Q: Yeah?

A: Yeah. They went to school here until they put the buses on.

Q: Yeah. Maybe….

A: That was what, in….

EC: (inaudible)

A: Huh? I drove the bus for them for six months. They was in a pinch. I think that was in forty six.

EC: (inaudible)

A: Yeah, right.

Q: Yeah. So it was about the same time they built the school.

A: Mm. Right, yeah.

Q: So when you went to school, it was the typical one room schoolhouse?

A: Oh yeah, right, yeah.

Q: All grades?

A: Oh yeah. Yeah, every grade there was, was there, yeah. And then there was one in Sandy Cove, so it split it up. Oh, this one here wasn’t very big. Probably, oh, at that time, probably there was twelve, fifteen children going to school at that time.

Q: That’s not very many.

A: No, but Sandy Cove had quite a few.

Q: Yeah.

A: Course Sandy Cove’s a lot bigger place, and Sandy Cove had a lot more. Sandy Cove school is still up there. There’s a family from the States that bought it I guess, or somewhere, and they live….they live in it in summers. But the one here, that was here, is where that trailer is.

Q: Yeah.

A: My granddaughter lives there.

Q: Yeah?

A: And that’s where the little schoolhouse used to be. My father was secretary for, I think it was twenty one years, for that school.

Q: Because they ran those schools by ah….what did they have, ah, trustees? Who paid for the school?

A: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Q: The community had to pay for the school and the teacher.

A: Oh yeah, right, yeah. But the most the school teachers got was three hundred fifty dollars a year. That was the biggest price they ever got, was three hundred fifty dollars, and they had to pay their board out of that. Yeah.

Q: Can you remember anything pleasant about school, or did you hate absolutely everything about it?

A: Well, pretty well, yeah. My father had to go around to all the houses, oh, I don’t know how many times, to collect the money.

Q: Yeah.

A: Right. Some would pay a little, say, “I can’t this week, you come next week.” He’d go back next week. The same old thing. No money.

Q: Yeah.

CC: Would it only be the people with children who had to pay for the teacher?

A: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, everybody, whether you had children or not….

CC: Oh, OK.

A: There was a tax, school tax to pay, you know. So every year you had to pay that school tax. That’s what kept the school up, you see. Yeah, and there was school teachers from far away that would apply through the season to get a school like this here, you know.

Q: Yeah?

A: They come from everywhere, yeah.

Q: Did they stay long?

A: Well they’d stay the term.

Q: Yeah.

A: They’d stay the term. And some got married.

Q: Yeah.

A: You know, after they come here, they got in with somebody. I know, my brother married a school teacher that taught here to the school. I went to school with her, and my brother married her. Yeah. And I believe she’s still living. She’s down with her daughter in Halifax, and oh, she’s way up in her nineties. And she’s still livin’ yet.

Q: Yeah. So you went until Grade Eight.

A: Yeah.

Q: Well, Grade Eight in this school.

A: Yeah.

Q: And then you had the choice…..did you have….you had no choice but to go that far.

A: Oh yeah, right. Yeah, right. Oh, my father was anxious for all the kids to go to school. I’ve seen it stormin’ so bad that he’d yoke the oxen and bundle us all up good to take us to school with the oxen. And then probably by the time school was out, it would moderate, and we’d go home. If it wasn’t, he’d be there with the oxen and the sleds to bring us home, yeah.

Q: Your mother felt pretty strongly about that also?

A: Oh yeah, right. Oh, yeah, right, yeah. Whatever one done, the other was willing.

Q: Yeah.

A: That’s why, I’ve said all my life, I can’t stand arguin’ or quarrelin’. No way in the world. If there’s anything gets me and discourages me, it’s that.

Q: Yeah.

A: Because my father and mother….I was brought up that way.

Q: Yeah.

A: I never heard a word between neither one of them. And, I think you grow with it that way.

Q: What else can you remember about what your….a typical day would be like for your mother on the farm?

A: Oh, she….they went to bed anywheres from half past ….my father always went to bed at seven thirty.

Q: Yeah?

A: She’d go about eight or eight thirty, because she had to fix everything all up before she went to bed. And of course they burned wood. The fire had to be completely out. Not a spark in either stove.

Q: So there was no banking it to try to make it last the night.

A: Oh, no way, no. The was too scared of fire.

Q: Yeah.

A: So when they went to bed, it had to be as if there never was a fire. And, four o’clock, my father was up, and about six, my mother’d get up. And he always had a big armload of nice dry kindlin’ by the stove, and lovely dry wood that was under cover. And of course, a short time after he was up, the house was warm. But all of us kids slept upstair, and there never was one drop of heat there. Just opened the door long enough to go in or out, and shut it right back up again. I’ve seen probably, pretty near a half inch of frost on the windows.

Q: Yeah.

A: And she always had chamber pots under every bed, and if you had used it in the first part, when you went to bed, when you got up again, it was froze just like a rock. Oh, yeah. And when you went to bed, you would shook….shake for probably half an hour. But there was one thing about it, she always had lots of bedding.

Q: Yeah.

A: Oh, my. Once you got in bed, you could feel the heft down on you, she had that much on all the beds. But it was just the cold air in that bed, to get in. Once you got in there and got warm, then you was alright. But I’m telling you, when we headed upstair at night to go to bed, it was just like going outdoor. My, my. Yeah.

Q: Did she make all of the bedding, make quilts?

A: Oh yes. Oh my yes. Oh yeah. She was always at something, you know. And in the summer, she would walk….get her work done and be ready by twelve o’clock, go strawberryin’ or raspberryin’….

Q: Yeah

A: And she’d stay ‘til she got her dishes solid full. But then you could go out in the pastures, and there was lovely nice big strawberries and all but, you don’t get none today, not even a field, you know. And she done a lot of canning, yeah.

Q: So, strawberries….I’ve wondered about that, because you didn’t have freezers. Nowadays, we put our strawberries in the freezers a lot.

A: Yeah, well she done everything up.

Q: Yeah.

A: Everything. And ah, I used to ask her different questions, and when she was doing strawberries or anything like that, she liked to keep ‘em, after they was all done and in the bottle, she loved to have ‘em kept just like as if they was picked.

Q: Yeah.

A: Where a lot of people has them so they’re mushy.

Q: Yeah.

A: And I asked her one time why she kept everything she was preserving on the back of the stove so long. She said, “I don’t want them to boil.” She said, “They’ll go to mush.” She said, “If I leave ‘em cookin’ slow where there ain’t too much heat,” she said, “They’ll stay whole.”

Q: Yeah.

A: And a lot of that thing she done give me great attention when I started to run that fish meal plant down here. Cause they didn’t know how to run it.

Q: Yeah.

A: And one man had run it thirteen years, or fourteen years over in New Brunswick, and ah, so they moved it here, and they wanted me to operate it. I said, “I don’t know the first thing about a meal plant.” Well, they said, “We’ll leave a man with you that’s run it fourteen years, and he’ll soon teach you how to run it. And you’ll be here when we build it.” “OK.” So we got it built, and he started her up first day, and he only run it a little while, had to stop her. And it had a big dryer in it, and that had….we call it fins on the inside….and the big dryer was long, and what’s it, about forty feet Emerson?

EC: (inaudible)

A: And that rolled over and over and them fins on the inside like that, were opposite one another so it would fall off, and a big fire was going through it, and the fans on the other end to keep it warm….hot, to dry it. And he would let so much come in at one time, and soft, and didn’t watch it….it would load the dryer and she couldn’t turn. They’d have to stop her. And ah, so, he said to me, he said, “We got to wait ‘til tomorrow and we gotta go in and walk in between all them fins clear to the other end of it, and try to shovel it up in bags and carry it to the other end and drop it out, and then,” he said, “when we start her up again, we’ll run her through again.” I said, “How often do you gotta do this?” “Huh,” he said, “two or three times a week.” Well I said, “Don’t look at me when it does that again. Don’t look at me.” He said, “Why?” I said, “Because that’s kids’ work. I ain’t gonna be doin’ it.” “Well how are you goin’ to do it? I guess if you’re goin’ to run this, you will.” “No,” I said, “I got better ideas than that. I don’t care if you’ve run it fourteen years. I got better ideas than that. That’s just kids’ work.” So he called his brother in Halifax. He was the head man of all. He said, “Stewart won’t go in and carry that out.” “Why not?” “He says he call it kids’ work. There’s a better way.” So he got me on the phone and I told him. And ah, so then he said, to his brother, he said ah, “Let Stewart start her up on his own, see what he can do.” So what I done, I went and I started the fans a goin’, and come back and started the fire a goin’ and then I’d just catch a hold of the handle, and she’d start to move up, and when she did I’d let go of the handle and she’d come back. And I kept doin’ that until by and by she’d all but go over. He said, “Oh, let her go.” “No, no, I said, “I ain’t ready.” And I waited ‘til she was dry enough that when I did shove her in the second gear, she’d go right over and over like that. Why within ten minutes I had it all out on the floor. He never run it after that, and he didn’t stay very long. But I learnt that from my mother.

Q: Yeah.

A: Cookin’ stuff on the stove.

Q: She was a good observer.

A: Yeah. Right. I said….well he said, “How are you gonna stop her?” He said, “You got that out, but,” he said, “how are you gonna stop her from loadin’ again? I said, “I’ll watch it sharp enough, and when I see she starts to load, I’ll cut the feed off ‘til that goes through, and then I’ll snap the feed back on.” But of all the years they had it, they couldn’t see that. But I learned a lot of that from my mother cookin’ on the stove….different things she told me she done, what the steam done, all like a that and…..It was like, they started runnin’ herring, and they had a man come. He was going to show me how to run herring through, but I had run the fish for quite a while. And, well, he had about two feet, just like soup on the floor. And then he got discouraged and said, “Well you clean it up and I gotta go to Halifax.” He just done that to get clear of it. So I started her up and got everything cleaned up and then I started runnin’ her on me own, cause we had a reversible speed that would slow her down and speed her up. So I slowed her right down. What their problem was….they was drivin’ the herring up this conveyor so fast, that the steam was hittin’ it right just same as like that. And it was a meltin’ ‘em right off, so you couldn’t press them, because it was all water. So I just slowed it down enough so that the herring went under and the steam went over the top. And then they…. when they come to the press they’d dried. You could pick it up in your hands, throw it again’ the wall. It was that dry. So, I mean, all them things I….a lot of them things I learned from what my mother said and done. She could….somebody could come one, two o’clock of the day. Would give her ten, fifteen minutes, and she had a good dinner.

Q: Yeah?

A: Cause she went right to the basement, opened up different stuff she had…..within ten or fifteen minutes she had a dinner on. Made all homemade bread. There was no….never heard tell of baker’s bread, you know. My, yes. Oh what a difference the way from today, you know. Today everything’s out of a can, out of a package, or something, you know. Oh, gee.

Q: So your mother made what had to have been pretty hard work, look easy.

A: Oh yeah, oh yeah, right, right, yeah. Well they carried….in my mother’s day, they….my father would carry two big buckets of water in the morning, and it was good ‘til the next morning. But today it would only flush the toilet twice.

Q: Yeah.

A: You see, it’s such a change in it, you know, yeah. Yeah.

Q: What about laundry? Being the….being the baby, you wouldn’t remember lines of diapers out on the line.

A: She done it all this way, on the washboard…..

Q: Yeah.

A” …..Up and down. Yeah, oh yeah. I remember her washin’ with….on the washboard, yeah. She used a little more water then. She had, maybe’d have to go through the day and water up again but….. But the same water washed all the clothes. What she had, you know, it was all done on the washboard. And then she wrung ‘em by hand, and then hung ‘em out. Oh yeah, right.

Q: And she was how old when she had you? Forty….

A: She was forty eight. Yeah.

Q: That’s amazing.

A: Yeah. Just nick and frizzle, that’s all.

Q: Yeah.

A: I’ve said a good many times, I wish….I wished they’d a waited another year, and then she wouldn’t a had me.

Q: And then they wouldn’t have had you. [Emerson]

A: But I guess….but I guess life….life don’t work that way. No, right. Yeah.

Q: Ahm, so, it kind of, maybe as the baby, it sort of became your destiny to be the one that would stick around the farm?

A: Well, no. I think what it was….that’s why I didn’t like school…..because I loved animals so well, and had it in my head that I’d like to dicker a lot. And my mind wasn’t on that school.

Q: Yeah.

A: It was just, “I can’t wait ‘til it comes time to get out of here and get home and work with them.”

Q: Yeah.

A: I think that was the problem, that I…..where the rest never was interested. They never was interested in anything my father done. They was….a lot of times, went away and went to work.

Q: Yeah.

A: And ah, their line wasn’t nowheres near like….never was, none of them, nowheres near like my line. They had no idea how to fix cattle’s horns or anything like that, and do all that kind of work, you know. One time, my brother come home, and he thought he’d like to buy a pair of steers. So he went and he bought a pair. Well they wasn’t very much. So, I was in the barn one day, and I looked then all over, and I opened their mouths. I said, “I gotta have some fun with him.” So I went to the house, and I said, “Arthur,” I said, “My, you took the awful trimmin’ on them steers.” He said, “Why?” “Well,” I said, “They ain’t got no upper teeth.” “What are you talkin’ about?” He said, “They eat hay alright.” I said, “I know it, but they got no upper teeth.” And he believed….he doubted me. So he said, “Let’s go see.” Oh that tickled me. So we went right down to the barn and I opened their mouth. Now I said, “That one ain’t got no upper teeth.” “No,” he says, “it hasn’t.” So I went and did the same to the other one, and I said, “I told you, that you got stuck in ‘em. They got no upper teeth.” He didn’t know the difference. But I knew that, see, yeah, because I took an interest in all that stuff, you know. But you see, he didn’t know nothin’ about that. He thought that they had a full set of teeth. Yeah.

Q: So how do you fix their horns?

A: Oh, I used a rope and block….little block, and I shifted it any way that I wanted them to go. First going off, when I first started…..course at them times, all of our cattle was in stanchions, which was quite easy to rig the pulley. But soon as I got up a little bigger, that I could go buy, even when my father was runnin’ everything, buy tie chains….I thought that was a torture, so I bought tie chains. And then I wondered how it was going to work. So I used….first going off, I stapled a block right in over their head. Well then I found that didn’t work, cause when they turned their head, the block didn’t turn. So then I suggested that….put a small rope in the block, and then staple the rope to the stanchion piece. And then when they turned their head, the block and everything turned.

Q: Yeah.

A: And if they was too narrow, I put a….made a wide stick and put three holes in and put little strings on each end to tie on their horns, and had the big line in the middle.

Q: Yeah.

A: And if I wanted one to come up more than the other, I just put a hole over further. And I used to do all things like that. Ah, the last pair I had, why, they didn’t have very good horns, but they was a pretty little pair of steers. So, one of them had a nice set of horns, right up like this, but they was like a cow, narrow, and I wanted them to flare. So, a lot of people said, “You’ll never fix his horns.” “Oh,” I said, “there’s a way.” So I went and bought a turnbuckle that used to be on buck saws…..

Q: Yeah.

A: And I measured his horns from end to end, and went to the machine shop, and got him to make me a rod, threaded, that would thread in there so it was right together, and make me a round hole on the other end of them, that I could drop it right down over his horns.

Q: Yeah.

A: And then I could put the set of knobs, brass knobs, on the end, that would hold it on there. And every day…..if I could get it out the full width before it fell apart, I had three inches to spread. So every day, I just give ‘em about a half a turn, so it wouldn’t hurt ‘em so much, you know. And ah, when I got out to three inches, they was commencin’ to look good. So I had no more. So I went right back and got another rod made a little longer, and slipped that back. And by the time spring come, when I was ready to use ‘em, had the handsomest set of horns you ever seen. They was spread off like this and all….and everybody said, “How did you ever get them off like that?” “Oh,” I said, “there’s no problem.” And then the other one, they wasn’t in line at all, so I rigged up two sets of weights, and put one one way, and one the other way. And when I got ready in the spring to use them, they was right in line. Every horn was right in line. Oh they had a cute set of horns. I done that for many years. Oh, I’ve had people that….clear from Bridgewater….wanted me to take theirs for the winter and fix their horns all up. And another man from Yarmouth wanted me to take two of them from Yarmouth, and I said, “No. I ain’t gonna waste my time workin’ on yours. I’ll work on me own.” I told ‘em how to do it. I said, “I’ll come hook ‘em up for you.” But, they’ll leave them there and leave ‘em there and leave ‘em there. Sometimes they’re pullin’ more opposite to what you want ‘em to. So I used to shift mine maybe three or four times a week, put ‘em in a little different direction. I’d watch the animal, how he fed and how he stood most of the time, and then I would correspond my weights and the direction according to the way he was keepin’ his head, and they always come out good. Yeah.

CC: Did your oxen have names?

A: Pardon?

CC: Did your oxen have names?

A: Manes?

CC: Names.

Q: How did you name them?

A: Oh, different….it was ah, sometimes Spark and Lion, sometimes Bright and Brown, and all such names as that, you know. Right, yeah.

Q: But you’d have lots of duplicates….you’d have gone through those names many times in your….

A: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Change ‘em back and forth, you know.

Q: Yeah.

A: And in the barn…..you can teach ‘em a lot in the barn. If you want ‘em to step over one way or step over the other way…. I’ve had ‘em before, now….I always had a chair sittin’ behind them. And after I got ‘em taught good, I could sit right there in the chair and tell ‘em which way I wanted ‘em to go. And they’d do it right off.

Q: Did you use their names when you were talking to them?

A: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Get ‘em so that they know their name, same as a dog or anything else you know. If you’d call ‘em something else, they don’t pay no attention, you know. They ah, they got brains enough to learn. I….I used to take a pair of steers when I was livin’ back on the farm, my father was livin’….we had a lot of low land, and when it got….later it would get quite soft….so I used to have a pair of steers broke pretty well. Then I could sit right on the mowing machine, see, and never get off. Come out to the corner, tell ‘em to back ‘gee’ around….course it was all back ‘gee’ when you’re mowing because your cutter bar is on that side….and the oxen would step back and then I would come around, they’d come right in that just as square as it could be, but…. You train ‘em to do that. And it’s the same way with plowing or anything. Ah, you can get one ox to follow the furrow goin’ out, and then you turn your [inaudible word] board over and the other ox’ll follow it comin’ back, you know. It’s just something that they….you learn them to do, you know. Right. And they’re quite easy to learn. It all depends on how you use them, you know. I’ve….I’ve brought ‘em home that was spoiled. If you put ‘em on the stone drag, why, they wouldn’t haul nothin’. They’d be over the chain and everything else. But after I’d had ‘em a month or two, they was just as true as could be. Yeah, right.

Q: And it’s their nature to want to do that kind of work?

A: Oh I think….I think….I’ve always had it in my head, I think animals love to do what you want ‘em to do. And it’s….when it comes to haulin’ a big load, I think they love to haul themselves, but you gotta teach them right. If you don’t, why you’ve spoiled them, and then just like anything else that’s spoiled….you can’t turn around and get it to do something. But how they teach dogs and everything to do all kinds of tricks, but then other people again would take that same dog and within a week spoil it so the dog wouldn’t do nothin’ but…. I always thought that there’s only certain people can teach certain things. Just the same as a school teacher. There’s a lot of school teachers, but there’s a lot of poor ones. But there’s some awful good ones, yeah, right.

Q: So is training oxen a dying art, or are you happy to see…. Is training oxen ah, something that you think will die away, or are you happy to see that it’s alive and well in some places?

A: Well, I don’t know just how to answer that for you.

Q: Well do you think there’ll continue to be an interest in it?

A: Hah?

Q: Do you think there will continue to be an interest in it?

A: No.

Q: No.

A: No, no. No, no, the interest is getting pretty well all gone all in oxen, everywhere. No, if you had a pair right here now, probably you’d never sell them. Be just one chance out of a hundred sellin’ them.

Q: Yeah.

A: But back a few years ago, there was someone to my place every day. Maybe two or three. And the most of them never went away with out something. I don’t like to see a buyer go away, cause he might not be back.

Q: Yeah.

A: But if you can satisfy him, and come out of it yourself, he will be back, or he’ll bring somebody else, you know. Yep. And how I got a lot of ‘em mated good, I….if I had one pair that wasn’t mated good, I would….I knew where pretty well where all the cattle was for a hundred miles away. And when I knew where there was another pair, that there was one good one in the lot, I would buy the pair and bring ‘em home and put the two good ones together, and kill the other two.

Q: Yeah.

A: And that’s how I got….got ‘em mated a lot better than anybody else.

Q: What makes a good pair? Do they have to look almost identical?

A: I’ve had….the last biggest pair I had, I had four mates alongside of one of ‘em. I’d buy a mate and put alongside of him, and go around to some of the ox hauls and exhibitions, and there’d be one pair there that one looked just like mine. I’d buy that pair and put ‘em together, and that’s how I done it. And I kept doin’ it ‘til I got ‘em right down good, cause there’s another one somewhere that looks like it, you know.

Q: Is it a certain breed of cattle…..

A: Oh yeah.

Q: …..Or did you raise all different kinds?

A: No, no. Pretty well….pretty well all white faced cattle or brockle faced cattle, out of Durham and Hereford, pretty well makes the best.

Q: Yeah.

A: They’re thicker….thicker built, neater built, not so big a bone, and ah, they have longer horns and….more spiteful to haul, more…seem to have more power and everything like that.

Q: What’s brockle faced? What’s that look?

A: Well, it’s, like….Durham and Hereford is bred together, and generally the Durham blood is stronger than the white faced blood, and they come with just speckles all over their face. That’s what we call brockle faces.

Q: Yeah.

A: And if they breed the other way, they got a pure white face, all white brisket, and a long white strip on their shoulder, and a half a white tail. But they don’t seem to….some does, but they don’t seem to have as much power as they do the other way, cause they’re bred more on the Durham side…..which a Durham is quite contrary, and he’s more stronger. And that gives’ em, when you get ‘em broke, they….more spiteful.

Q: Yeah.

A: You know. But the other breeds, why, some has’ em, but I never liked ‘em, because they wasn’t thick enough. You know, they’re not good built enough, and I liked them to have a good shape and a good style and….just like a man likes to have a good lookin’ woman, well that’s the same thing. When you go in on the grounds with probably seventy five or eight or a hundred pair, and you could take the top, why you got her pretty good.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah, right. I never broke a pair in my life, in the spring, that I took to an exhibition, that I wasn’t top. Never in my life. There was one man back about eight, ten years ago….I broke a pair and every….and he broke a pair. And we went to Caledonia, and he said, ah, “There’s a nice trophy up.” One man come to me and said, “I’ve got a good trophy up.” He says, “Suppose you can get it? I’d like for you to have it.” Well I said, “I don’t see why I can’t.” I said, “There’s gotta be somethin’ here awful good, awful good.” So there’s another fella had always been trying to be the top, and ah, and he said to me, “There’s a nice trophy up today.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I’m gonna have that trophy.”

Q: Is the trophy a trophy, or is it prize money?

A: No, they give a trophy.

Q: Yeah. No money?

A: No.

Q: No other reward for all that time.

A: No, we all worked on trophies.

Q: Yeah.

A: And ah, so, we went in and took our turn. Oh, I had no trouble at all. I got the trophy. He said, “You won’t get it next year.” He said, “I’m gonna hold them over.” I said, “I’ll hold mine over.” So I held mine over. We went right back to the same place.

Q: Eager to meet again.

A: I got her….same man put another trophy up, same man….I got, I got the trophy both years. And they….after I sold ‘em, they went through one…two…three…four hands, right quick. They come right back to the man that give me the two trophies.

Q: Yeah.

A: And he kept them until just, I think it was a year ago. He got clear of them. They got sold. He had ‘em all that time. Oh yeah, he won a lot of trophies with them. But I….I’ve said that ah…..his wife spoke to me one day about it….why they been so good. I said, “They was taught right from the start,” and I said, “You fellers didn’t overdo it, and that’s why you’ve got ‘em today.”

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah.

Q: So how old would they live to be?

A: Oh, they keep them around….if they’re good….around fifteen, sixteen, eighteen years.

Q: Yeah?

A: They lose their teeth, you see.

Q: Yeah.

A: And then they can’t eat good.

Q: Yeah.

A: And then, course, that’s pretty well the life of ‘em. Some goes twenty, but, I mean, they’ve failed a lot. They’ve got older, and it’s like a young person and an old person. You lose your strength. And they lose their strength, so then they slip ‘em to the slaughterhouse, you know. Yeah.

Q: Were either you or your father in the business of, um, butchering and peddling….?

A: Oh yeah.

Q: Any peddling?

A: Yeah, he only butchered his….like in the fall, if he wanted one beef, or kill a pig, he done that. Other than that, he never done that.

Q: No.

A: But I butchered a lot. Oh yeah.

Q: You’d have to, in order to….

A: Oh yeah. I ah….I used to, up until here about, well, ten years ago anyway….I used to kill about twenty or twenty five head every fall for deep freezes.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah.

Q: People just came to you.

A: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. But I made a practice that, not to sell it out by the quarter.

Q: Yes, why?

A: Because a lot of people just wants the hind quarter.

Q: Right.

A: And then you’re stuck with forward quarters, and nobody don’t want ‘em.

Q: Yeah.

A: So I said, “No, I ain’t gonna do it. You’re either gonna buy a half, or you ain’t gonna get none.” And I never had a bit of trouble. Once I done that, I had no trouble at all. No, I used to butcher a lot.

Q: That would be me. I would be looking for the hind quarter.

A: Yeah, right. Oh yes.

Q: When your family gets smaller, then you don’t need so much.

A: That’s right, yeah. Oh yeah, I butchered a lot, yeah. If I bought any big oxen that I bought and cross mated, if I had that pair on my hands, I’d send ‘em to the slaughterhouse in Kingston, cause they was too big for me to handle.

Q: Yeah.

A: But any stuff, like steers, and I bought two pair and cross mated ‘em, took out the best two….I killed them.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah, send them out for deep freeze, you know. I never was stuck.

Q: Ahm, you never use dogs when you’re training oxen? That’s not a part of it, like sheep raising or anything…..you never use….

A: No.

Q: That’s not part of it.

A: No. No, a lot of people has used everything to try to break a pair of steers, and they’ve spoiled more than they’ve broke. I had a man down to Yarmouth to make me a nice leather covered whip, and made the lash and all. It was a lovely hangin’ whip, and put a snapper on the end of it and all. And when I sold all my gear off to a man in Yarmouth, I said to him, the whip was in the lot. I said, “I’ve broke three pair of steers with that whip, and never had a snapper put on it.” He said, “I can’t believe that.” He said, “I have to have a snapper put on my whip every week.” I said, “Yeah, well you don’t use it. You don’t want to use it.” I said, “That’s why you’ve got so many spoiled cattle.” I said….

Q: What’s the snapper do?

A: Well it….there’s, like a very thin leather like, from the end of it down….

Q: Yeah.

A: And then all you got…blunt…it don’t hang good. But you take a piece of gangion, and put on the end of it, about that long, and it seems to make a better handlin’ whip and everything.

Q: Yeah.

A: But they beat them right off, and that’s why they got so many spoiled cattle. They ah, overload ‘em, and just because they’ve took that load right now….they’ll wait a few minutes and try ‘em right over again, and they can’t move it. And if they don’t move it, they start usin’ the whip on them.

Q: Yeah.

A: Well it’s just like a dog. If you beat a dog, he’s gonna run somewhere. So, I never done it that way.

Q: Is the idea mostly to make a snapping noise, or to make contact with them?

A: Yeah, right, right, yeah. Right, right. But ah, the way I trained all of mine, I had two drags , one loaded light, and the other one real heavy.

Q: Yeah.

A: And I got ‘em to be usin’ the light one when….oh, real good, so they never knew it was on ‘em.

Q: Yeah.

A: And, I would shift ‘em, and put ‘em on the big one. And of course they didn’t know they was on the big one. They’d settle right down and make a big start, and I’d let ‘em go about that far, and I’d stop and take ‘em right off, put ‘em back on the little one. And I’d keep doing that. I only done it about twice or three times, and I’d go put ‘em in the barn. Any time I took ‘em out, I could hook ‘em on it, and they’d start it. But you see, the most of people would put ‘em on it, and if they can’t move it, or if they move it once, they’ll think, well, they should drag it quite a ways further now….they’ve started it once. But they don’t do it….it don’t work that way.

Q: That’s not the way it works.

A: Yeah. I ah, I had one pair that….oh they was good, and ah, but they was awful wild and everything, but I never had no trouble with them. So there was a man from Yarmouth come up, and he wanted to yoke ‘em up, so I yoked ‘em up and put ‘em on the drag. And I hooked ‘em right on my big load, drug it clear out in front of the barn. And ah, so they was standing there, and he said, “I’d like to try ‘em.” “Here’s the whip.” You know, he couldn’t get ‘em to even move it. They wouldn’t even try. I said, “I don’t believe they’re going to be any good to you.” He said, “They won’t even take a hold for me.” I said, “No.” He said, “You try ‘em” And he handed me the…. I said,“I don’t want the whip. You keep the whip.” I just stepped in front of ‘em and spoke to them. They settled right down and took it right off. He said, “I can’t understand that, why they won’t haul for me.” I said, “They….your voice is different. They’re used to mine, and they know what I tell ‘em.” And I said, “You don’t.”

Q: Yeah.

A: And they….he bought ‘em after a while, and I took ‘em down to him. He paid me for them, and we put ‘em in the barn. And in less than two hours, he sold ‘em back to me. I had to pay a hundred dollars more….

Q: Ooh.

A: But that was nothing.

Q: You didn’t dicker again.

A: No, but within….within twenty minutes, I made two hundred dollars more.

Q: Yeah?

A: Just that quick.

Q: Yeah? Wow.

A: That’s what I liked you know. Yeah. But the most I ever made….I bought one pair for eleven hundred dollars. And I brought ‘em home, put ‘em right in the sling, put a set of shoes on ‘em. And the next day, I fitted the yoke to them, to see how they was gonna work. And three weeks from that, we was down to a supper in Caledonia. Ox Association, you know.

Q: Yes.

A: And Margaret and I was sittin’ on this side of the table, and this man and his wife was sittin’ on the other side of the table. He said, “Where can I buy a good pair of steers, broke?” I said, “Right down at my place.” He said, “How much money?” I said, “Twenty three hundred dollars.” I had paid eleven.

Q: Double, and then some.

A: Yep. He said, “I’ll be to your place tomorrow morning.” I said, “Good enough.” So he come, and he looked them all over and got me to yoke ‘em up and everything. He liked them fine. He said, “I’ll give you twenty two hundred dollars, you take ‘em up and put ‘em in the barn.” I said, “No way, no, twenty three hundred dollars.” After a while, he said, “I guess I can’t do no better.” “No,” I said, “I can’t.” He said, “You’ll take ‘em up, you’ll deliver ‘em?” I said, “Oh yeah.” So he counted me out the money, and I delivered them. That was the most money I ever made quick, in my life.

Q: That’s pretty good.

A: Yeah, oh yeah, right. That’s why I like dickerin’. And before I’d come home, I’d bought somethin’ else and brought it right back, you see. Oh, yeah, that was way better than school to me. Right.

Q: Did Margaret ever get aggravated with you, that you didn’t….that before you brought the money home, you found something else to buy?

A: Oh no, no, no, no. She thought that was great.

Q: Yeah.

A: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Cause a lot of times she went with me, when I done that, you know. Yeah.

Q: Ahm, can you tell us Stewart, a little bit about how you met Margaret, and your early married life, and how that was different than your mother’s….?

A: Yeah, yeah. I ah, I went with a girl in Rossway two years.

Q: Yes.

A: And I used to walk to go up there. And I done some work….her mother had a big farm, and I used to work for them some, up there. Go up and stay maybe three or four days. I think sometimes I have stayed a week, and then I had to come back home and help my father. So we was going to get married. I went with her two years, right straight. So everything was planned but just settin’ the date.

Q: Yes.

A: That was gettin’ close. And this certain night, we was talking, and I said….told her where we was going to move and all. She said, “I can’t leave my mother.” I said, “Yeah?” I said, “What are we going to do? Me live down Digby Neck and you live up here? What kind of married life would that be?” I said, “I got an idea what married life is like, and I think I would enjoy it wonderful, if it goes the way I’d like for it to go.” “Well,” she said, “I can’t see why it won’t go good.” “Well,” I said, “It won’t go good with you livin’ up here and me livin’ somewhere else. That’s for sure.” So, it wasn’t much more said. So the next morning, we had breakfast, and when I got ready to leave….I was comin’ home that day to help my father….and she said ah, “What we was talkin’ about last night….” I said, “Yeah.” She said, ah, “When you come back again, I’ll have a good answer for you.” She said, “I’ll talk it over with my mother.” Because there was different things about the place that, I wasn’t going to move on somebody else’s place. And I wanted it to be fair. And she had a brother in law that had married her sister, and they figured on, he was going to have the place. Fine, dandy. I didn’t need their place. But I wasn’t going to run their place for about ten years and then be outdoor with maybe one to five kids maybe. So, that’s….that’s when she was going to talk it over with her mother.

Q: Yeah.

A: But the minute I stepped my foot out on the platform, something says, “No.”

Q: Yeah.

A: “Don’t bite. You won’t be contented.” And I come home, and I never went back. Never went back to say, “I,” Yes,” or “No.”

Q: No.

A: So then I….I had me own truck, so I come home, and stayed home with my father and mother, and worked around every day just the same. And then nights, I’d go out around, and I picked up a few girls, maybe three or four or five, and they didn’t suit me. So then, Margaret only lived a mile from me. So I don’t know, I picked her up one night. And we seemed to hit pretty good, and then I kept pickin’ her up, pickin’ her up, ‘til I went with her two years. And then we got married.

Q: What was her maiden name

A: Theriault.

Q: Theriault.

A: Yeah.

Q: So how old were you when you got married?

A: I was twenty eight.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah, I was twenty eight. She was twenty one.

Q: Yeah.

A: But she made a lovely woman. And you couldn’t make a woman any better than she was.

Q: Yeah, I’ve heard that before.

A: Yeah. Well, it was like a lot of people said, “How come you tortured yourself with stayin’ in the house all that time to look after her?” I said, “I didn’t torture myself.” I said, ah, “I thought enough of her that I didn’t want her to go somewhere else, and not be able to talk, and paralyzed.” What kind of a feeling is that, you know?

CD3

Q: Well, we’ll talk a little bit more about….you just told us how you met your wife….

A: Well….

Q: …..And married her, and a little bit about courtship, and…. Then, ahm, earlier in the interview, you mentioned that she lived out with her parents…..

A: Yeah

Q: And you joined them at night, but would go back and work on your father’s farm.

A: Yeah, until I built my house.

Q: Yeah.

A: ‘Til I got my other house built. I didn’t want to live in with nobody.

Q: No.

A: So, I….there was a piece of property down here in Little River, and ah….that Mrs. Anthony owned, and there was a….like a big hotel on it, and a barn. And it was a good buy. So I was always looking for good buys. And ah….cause I knew eventually, that I could unload it one way or another and make some money. So I bought it from her, and ah, then I took the house down in sections, and I got a big truck, and moved them back to my house where I was going to build my house. And I got everything ready, and then I got some men to help me. We stood the sides up, but I cut ‘em down smaller than what they was there. And ah, the porch that’s on my house down here was the porch that was on that hotel outfit there.

Q: Yes?

A: And I had that….after I built the little house back there, I moved that porch from there, back there, and hooked on to that house. And then, as years went on, and I bought this place and fixed it up, I went and took that porch off of that house, and it’s down here on to this house. Probably that porch is a hundred years old, but I’ve shingled it and put doors in it, and things like that, but the main thing of it was back, probably when it was first built a hundred years ago. And ah, then I took the hotel all down, and there was a lot of big rafters in it and all…. And I don’t know what I done with it all, but I kept unloadin’ whatever I could here and there, ‘til I moved everything out of the house. Well then the barn was still there pretty good, and I cut the hay on it for two or three years. There was quite a little place to it and…. Then I used to have a good pair of steers in the fall, and if the fall feed got good, I’d take ‘em down there and put ‘em in there for a while and… Then after about three or four years, why, my brother come home. He knew I had it, and he was just the kind of a man I was lookin’ for. So he wanted to buy it. I said, “No problem.” So I sold it to him, and I was rid of that. So, then, he only kept it about a year, and he sold it to a guy down there, and there must be, what, three or four houses built there now, ain’t there?

EC: Mm.

A: Three or four new houses built there now. And I got clear of that. So she stayed with her mother and father until I got the house built. And ah, we was so anxious to move, that I had punched the shingles all off where I was going to put the front door, and of course the boards was about like that apart, and it was right dead in the winter. And we punched the holes….shingles all off in the afternoon big enough to cut the door, but we didn’t dare cut it through, cause there was cold enough comin’ in then. And the next day or two come good, and we sawed it out and shoved the new frame and the door and everything right in. Then it made it a little better. And ah, so we lived there in that ‘til I moved out there on the road. Well then, I had got settled here good, so I said one day, “That house is no good to me back there. I’m going to move it.” “Oh,” a lot of people said, “You’ll never move that, right through the woods.” “Oh,” I said, “I’ll move her.” So, one time I had time, and I went and I jacked it up, put two big logs under it, run a cable around it back to the end, and fastened the logs so they couldn’t come together. And I got her all ready. Then I went and I hired a bulldozer. And he come down here to the house, and I took him back the way I wanted to go, and bulldozed the road right through what woods there was, and bulled her out wide, and went back, and I said, “Hook on her.” He said, “You gotta come down over a side hill.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “It’s liable to upset.” “Well,” I said, “There’s no money involved. Only what I’m payin’ you. Let her upset.” But she come down over and come out faster than I could walk, and I hauled her right out in the door yard. Well, my daughter was married then, and they wanted a house. So they run a cement slab, kind of off from my house, between that and the little one that Emerson had built. And I had it settin’ there in the door yard. I had….I intended to make a garage out of it, but she wanted it. I said, “OK.” But they had just had moved it on the wall. And ah, a man up the road passed away, and his wife sold the home. So then Carol and her husband bought that house, so they didn’t want mine no more. So, I took a dozer, or a back hoe, and filled the place up that they had dug out, and the wall was there. I said, if somebody ever went diggin’ there sometime and come across that wall, they’d wonder why that wall was there. They’ll never know. And ah, so then Emerson wanted it. “Well,” I said, “I’d like to had it for a garage.” “Well,” he said, “I’d like to have it.” I said, “OK, you can have it.” So he towed it over to his place, and he never done nothin’ with it, and finally in the end, he burnt her up. And that ended the house that I built. Right. But Margaret never liked it in there. Course I could understand that, she didn’t like it. But she never made no trouble. She was contented and everything. And she knew she could go any day she wanted to go, and come back any time she wanted to come. And then when I had to move back there to look after my father, well they was….a lot of the kids was there….said you’re the best one to do it all. You know how to run the cattle ranch, and all this and that and…. So I said, “There’s one thing, one question I got to find out.” “What’s that?” I said, “I gotta talk to Margaret tonight, and if Margaret says, “No way am I going to leave this place,” I said, “I can’t do it.” Cause I said, “I gotta look after myself as well as anything else.” I said, “We’ll have to arrange something else.”

Q: Yeah.

A: “I ain’t going to break my home up, and if she can’t come, I can’t….I’m not gonna go.” So I went home and told her, and we talked it all over and…. She said, “I can’t see why….” She said, “It would benefit us down the line some way or another.”

Q: Yeah.

A: Cause she said, “Sooner or later we could move back out again.”

Q: Yeah.

A: I said, “No problem to move. No, no,” I said, “I’ll be willing to move any time if it suits me, because I don’t like it here myself.” So that’s what we done. And we stayed there ‘til about five years after my father died. And then I bought her again, and moved out. Well then I used both the farms for quite a while ‘til…. I got the job runnin’ that fishmeal plant. When that was right from the house, I could dicker in cattle, and I could run the fishmeal plant every day. And I run it under my way.

Q: Yeah.

A: I said to ‘em first, “You give me so much a week. I’ll keep the gurry cleaned up, but I won’t run her Sundays. Don’t matter if it’s runnin’ over. No Sunday work. I don’t work for myself Sundays, and I’m not going to work for you. “OK,” they said. And I said, “I