Cape Breton's Magazine

From Breton Cove and Boston • Conversations with Josie Matheson Bredbury (Josie, tell me about what happened to that cow? What's the story behind that cow?) Well, she lived! (Laughter.) (But I mean, what happened there?) Well, they made the home-brew. There was John Murdock and Johnny and my brother Jimmy. And there was another one--I really can't remember who the other guy was. But he wasn't with them all the time. But those three boys (made) the stuff from the house, and took the stuff out in the pas? ture, and put it in this wooden washtub my mother had. And they had a wooden top to put on it--boards, you know. So they put it out there. I don't know what they put in it. Except that they had hot water--boiling water. I guess there was--I don't know if there was yeast, but anjrway.... (They had made a home-brew.) Oh, yeah. They filled up the tub out there. (They'd put it out there to brew...?) Yeah, be? cause my father, you know, would kill them, (for) doing it. So, the minister came that day--it was a Sunday at that. And my mother, you know, she'd let them do anything. All the women would, you know, those days. So we told the minister--A. C. (Archie) Fraser--"Take Papa for 2 or 3 days"--with him. (Because) the boys wanted to do this. So Archie said, "What are you girls up to this time?" Every time we'd tell him to take Papa, we were going to paper the house or do something, you know. So anyway, he took Papa. And (the boys) got busy right away. And then a day or two after that, we missed a cow. And she didn't have horns. And we called her "Mao? li." So, we couldn't find her high and low, the pasture there. So, down in the corner of the pasture, it's swampy. So Jimmy thought, "Well, I'll go down there. She might have got caught in the mud down there." So he did, and he couldn't find her down there. So on his way back, he thought, "Well, I guess I'll look at the brew"--whatever they called it. So he went up there. And here was the cow, stiff as a poker on the ground. He thought she was dead, at first. So he took his handkerchief off his neck and put it up her nose and she went, "Wooof!" So he knew she was living, an3n(/ay. So then he wrestled around getting the boys with him. I wasn't there. But they got the cow on her feet, anyway. And they