Cape Breton's Magazine

A VISIT WITH MARGUERITE GALLANT, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 The first thing someone gave me wasn't a gift. It was a dress. It was beautiful. Kind of all rose and pink. It was kind of tweedlike. In the olden time, the material was unbelieveable. Well, I went to school and I came home and my uncle and my aunt had come, and my mother had sent my dress to Mary Ellen, my cousin. And the first gift I remember I got was a set of dishes. It's not yesterday. Now what happened to ray dishes? It was four little cups and a teapot and a pitcher. Well, one day I came horae from school and a great big-mouthed woman had come and she had broken one of my little cups. And I guess it's the same time my mother had given my dress. All I had was a teapot and a-milk pitcher. And three cups and four lit? tle plates. And, ah, I was heartbroken. I cried. Well, the woman who broke my first little cup, she died last fall. And when I came back from Pennsylvania after all those years I had to go to her and beg her pardon be? cause I had a grudge against her for all that time. Once I saw a little glass case and a little man in it in a California museum. There was a little loom and a lit? tle woman sitting at the loom and the little man was mailing a birch bark rope. And it said below, made some? where in Acadia, Nova Scotia. Well, look, if ever I en? vied a thing, that was it. I could have cried. It was the most beautiful thing. Oh, yes, I appreciate a gift. Well, look now, little children come and they bring me a rock- well, some would just chase them away but I love it. I have a bagful there. I have a big bag upstairs. I have two or three boxes. I have beautiful rocks. I'm not exaggerating. Now you tell me what that is. The children brought it to me years ago. They found it in the surf. I don??t know what it is. It's so marked, and it floats. And here is a fossil. Take it off my knee, it weighs a ton. And look, that's a handmade brick. And if you were a witch, you would have to have this: it's a brain coral. They used to say there were all kinds of witches at The Point when the Jersey were there. If not, then there must have been coral beds here. And these are all old pieces of wood. Every once in a while people come and they want a piece of wood. I give them this. Oh, I??m crazy. I'm crazy, you can tell me. It wouldn't hurt my feelings. I'm happy. Everybody's good and kind to me. You know, I think I'm the happiest woman on earth. This is my cart. Isn't it beautiful? I want you to take a picture ot it. That win be something for your magazine* ??(ii'!>e.ri'Tiorvj lis) is%

Cape Breton's Magazine