Cape Breton's Magazine

that spur so you could drive it in a block. The ones we used to make out of axes was fellows that was keeping the roads • the swampers • keeping the hauling road in re? pair. They could keep the one blade sharp and cut down a stick with it, then they could drive the spur and haul it after them if they were going to put skids on the road. But the regular pickaroon, you took a piece of strap iron about two inches wide, two by a quarter. And then you get the center and beat both ends to a point. Then you'd double it over and weld them so they'd be just one point. And there'd be a space left for a handle. Making sleighs, there was a carpenter • he used to take a stick with a crook in it and shape it. Many a time they used to hew it, the sides of it • the latter years they used to get them sawed at the mill. Then the carpenter had a pattern, different sizes of runners to make, the front sleigh and the hind sleigh • and I was putting the iron on. Three inch shoeing,* three by a half. You were drilling that and bolting it on. And I used to make forks for the cooks; strong, 3- pronged forks so they could pick up a quarter of beef, get them out of the pot, S' AM Peril's Pi'KAgooN' " I '"' L. J s.Te-p I There was no growling. Everybody seemed satisfied. You had to be out before daylight and out after dark. Lots of work and lots of good food. And you had lots of sleep, I really enjoyed it, I wish,,,to be back again. Yes. Many a time I think of it. And the work was hard, as hard as you could. The boss never told me to hurry up or there is this to be done. The work was oh top of you all the time. You had to keep the horses going. But everybody was young then, strong. You wouldn't get men today. The young generation wouldn't think of such a thing. This time of year there'd be men out shoveling snow from daylight to dark. Too deep for the horses to go through, Johnny Murphy, Cutter and Scaler: By golly that was awful slavery. We got a dollar seventy-five a cord, for cutting this pulp 4 foot long. Most of it carried further than the length of this house, piling it. It isn't like today. Today they pile it where they cut it and they cut it 8 feet long and they get 7 dollars a cord and they have those powersaws • we had crosscuts. You talk about cutting 8 and 9 cords with a powersaw. My brother and I cut as high as 7 cords with a crosscut, piled it and car? ried it out in a day. Then on the drive, driving it into Murray down through the woods • you left camp at 5 o'clock in the morning and you'd be in half past 7 at night. Five and six feet of snow and that cold water all day. I was 15 the first year, and it was 11 o'clock when we got down that night to Oregon, And we had only one meal that day. That was the Oxford Paper Company, I was a cutter in the woods, and I scaled the wood the others'd cut, and kept the time. And kept what they called the wangan. The wangan box is where they kept the tobacco, shoelaces, boots and sox Qualified Dispensers Always in Attendance OWL DRUG STORE D* I? MacDonald, Prop. Your Northside DOROTHY GRAY DISTRIBUTOR Convalescent and Sick Room Supplies Sales & Rental Drug Sundries and Cosmetics P.O.Box 125 794-3611 North Sydney ALWAYS AT YOUR SERVICE Cape Breton's Magazine/2 CHICKEN CHALET frid 4 outlets to serve you- Blowers St, North Sydney . Sydney Shopping Centre, Prince St Sterling Road, Glace Bay C.B. Shopping Plaza, Sydney River ??94-3534 564-6322 849-6689