Cape Breton's Magazine

ured he was going to sell it. That's how we got this place. I had the mill all set up here, and the first time they wanted liimber for the mine, I had it for them. (At this time there was no mine or talk of a mine, 1949.) No. But they started in '50. (You felt they were going to start?) Oh yeah, I was sure. I moved the mill and eve? rything down here to be ready for them. John G. came down when I was building the house and the mill. "Did you buy any shares?" She was after starting. "Did you buy any shares?" "No," I said, "I didn't buy any shares. I've got shares enough right here," I had the mill down here just in time to supply them with the lumber they needed. (Why do you think you're able to foretell that sort of thing?) Oh, I don't know. (Was that in your family before you?) The MacDermids and Morrisons, they were full of it. Now where my daughter is, that house was haunted. People had to leave there. After the power went in, I was telling my daugh? ter, "You'll never hear anything." Oh, they used to see a black dog coming in and going upstairs, and hear noises and things. There were two families had to leave there. But once the power went in there, they nev? er heard anything any more. You don't see anything where there's elec? tricity- -at least I don't. And I don't hear of anybody else seeing things. (Too busy watching television?) Well, no. I think there's something in the air that forbids that.... I don't know what it is. When I was growing up, I wouldn't walk in the middle of the road in the night if you'd give me a thousand dollars. You know, you'd meet funerals on the road. Knock you down and, well, pretty near kill you. You'd feel compressed, you know? Like eve? rything was pressing on you. You don't hear that now any more since the power came in. (You mean funerals that weren't really there.) There was nothing there. You wouldn't see anything. It was just like compressed, it would knock you down. And I've heard different fellows who rolled off the road. Nobody in this coun? try when I was growing up as a young fel? low would walk in the middle of the road in the nighttime, no way. I was coming home up in St. Esprit, or Framboise Intervale, you'd call it. And that happened to me. I was only maybe 19 or 20. So I'd never walk in the middle of the road again. And the funeral that it was, it wasn't too long afterward when it came through. A fellow got killed out west or something and his remains came home, came in a horse and sleigh from St. Peters. This happened to me in the wintertime, and the funeral came before the winter was over. (What we call Stirling--it wasn't the name of the mine?) Nothing to do with the mine. (That name has been here since when?) Since the first settlers settled here, nothing to do with the mine. (You were telling me that the highway department changed the name.) They spelled it "Ster? ling," We had a post office right here-- "Sterling"--that's sterling silver. But "Stirling," that's Stirling, Scotland-- that's what this place originally got its name from. We didn't go looking for it ear? ly enough, I guess, to find out who called it Stirling, or how did it happen. (The highway department tried to put up signs?) They put up "e" instead of "i." I think a- bout 30 of them. I went up to see the guy. He got kind of saucy to me. "I'll get the' dictionary," he said, "and I'll prove to you." I said, "You get the map of Scotland and see what it's spelled like." They changed all the signs but one that's at the end of Grand River bridge. We lost our post office, but we weren't going to lose our name. People come looking for you to? day down at Gabarus--you know, it's R. R, 1, Gabarus. I'll tell you another instance, just to show you the way they used down here. When