Cape Breton's Magazine

yes, yeah. (Heavy work.) Ach yes, but, when you have a good team of horses that you can depend on, they'll stop when you want them, and you can drop your lines and do whatever you had to do. It makes a big difference. (Johnny Allan, do you have any idea when horses first came here to Loch Lomond--who had the first horse?) Well, my grandfather, he had a horse--he was a very able horse. And when he'd be plowing, he had that horse and an ox--he had that team, horse and the ox. (Side by side.) Side by side. And when my grandmother would blow the conch--you know what a conch is, a marine shell--for dinner, the ox would stop, but the horse would keep going. The ox was wiser--he knew that there was a feed waiting for him. (How did this farm fare off during the De? pression?) Okay. Better than those in the city. There was no shortage of anything. The only thing that got me going a little bit fast was tea, during the war, when tea was rationed. And tea's used a lot all over the whole country. Well, I said to Angus, my son--I didn't have the car registered at that time. You'd only get gasoline enough for so many months. I sent my son over to a McVicker fellow, so we'd go and get tea somewheres. I had a lot of hay ready to put in, but I said to myself, the heck with the hay--we've always got lots of hay, anyway. He didn't come. But he came in the evening. I said, "What the hell was keeping you, anyway?" "What did you want me for?" "You know tea was rationed last night. And un? less we get to going, and try and get some early today, we'll never get it." "Where will we go?" "We'll go to the stores around, little stores." "What about going to Sydney and going to McCoubrey, where we buy everything else?" "All right. But we'll have to tell some lies. And buy something, besides tea." Well, I asked for a bag of flour. And the other fellow, he wanted a bag of flour too. "Oh yes," I said, "tea." "Tea? Oh, tea is rationed," McCoubrey said, "tea is ra? tioned." "What do you mean--you haven't got it?" "Oh yes, I have lots of tea." "Well, what do you mean by rationing? I always paid you for everything I ever got here." "I know that, too. Have you got a radio home?" "Yes, but the battery is dead. I'll have to get a new battery." "My God, it's the battery kind you've got." "That's the only kind I can afford." "You know where I used to keep the tea?" "Oh, yes." "Do you know where I keep the bags?" "Yes." "Go and help yourself, and don't come to me, be? cause I won't take your--any money today." Laughing. So both of us went and we got bran bags and filled them with tea. He asked us, "If you're stopped on the road and they see you with all that tea, what are you going to tell them?" The other fellow says, "I'll go to jail. And by jeez, they'll have to look after my family, and make the hay for me, too!" "I'll do the same! I'll go to jail, too! Just as well. And indeed, they'll have a hell of a lot of cows to milk!" Laughs. "Go ahead, boys, go on! Go home." So, we got along okay. Cape Breton's Original English Recipe! And We've Crossed the Causeway! 539-8188 76 Townsend St. Sydney 849-5150 Senatoi's Corner Glace Bay 863-2866 Antigonish Mall Antigonish 562-6745 • The Oasis" Sydney Shopping Centre 794-3555 Next to North Sydney Mall North Sydney HOME STYLE PROCESS (12 years in operation) The Fish and Chips Specialists