Cape Breton's Magazine

dren, and my father and mother. (Do you mean she'd get breakfast for 16 people?) Well, we all helped, eh? We all helped. Everybody had their own turn. Everybody knew--now, if it was my turn--everyone had a turn getting up in the morning and lighting the fires on. Whoever's turn it was to make the fire. If it was my turn, I had to split my own kindlings. I had to carry my own wood in, get my own bark, and everything at the stove...for the morning. Now, the next morning--whoever's turn it was had to do their own work. Washing dishes was the same. One had to wash the breakfast dishes, one of them had to wash the dinner dishes, and one had to wash the supper dishes. No such a thing as two doing it. You take your turn. That's the girls. That was the way the girls worked. Oh, my dear--we did everything. We had to do everything. We planted potatoes in the spring, and then we moved to the Point (White Point), where my father--to go lob? ster fishing. We stayed down there till the first of September. We worked in the factory, me and my two sisters--lobster factory. And then we'd leave the last of September and come back up home. And dig the potatoes, and put the potatoes away. Then you'd have to start getting the hay for the winter. My father--they fished till November, him and my brother. And then they'd quit fish? ing and come home. Then the winter's work started. Hauling hay, putting that away in the barn. (You'd haul hay in November?) Oh, my dear, yes. Everything was done be? fore the snow ever came. (But I mean, most people put their hay in....) We didn't have any hay, see. The farm--the place we had wasn't big enough for hay. And we had a horse and two cows and some sheep. So he used to buy his hay. So as soon as he came home and got settled down from fishing in" November, he started hauling his hay. Got it all put away for the winter. Hay first, see. And then started cutting wood--sawing it and split? ting it and piling it. (Where was home for you?) Were you ever at Percy Dixon's? Well, that old house, be? hind Percy's, that was our home. That's South Harbour. (So you had a home at South Harbour. What is this about--to go to White Point?) We had a home at White Point, too--a summer home. A fishing- while they were lobster fishing. ??just We--the whole family'd move down the last of May. He'd go down and set his t;raps, him and my brother. And then the last of May, by that time we'd have all the pota? toes in, see, and everything done home, in South Harbour. And then he'd move us down --the whole family. We'd stay at White Point till the last of September. Then it WE KEEP TABS ON CAPE BRETON, TOO! Local histories, geneaiogical tools, area newspaper backfiles. Serving Inverness, Richmond, and Guysborough Counties EASTERN COUNTIES REGIONAL LIBRARY 390 Murray Street, P. O. Box 250 MULGRAVE, N. S. BOE 2G0 Teh (902) 747-2597 ENVOY: ILL.NSME 539-4800 J. A. Wm Young & Son Maritime Marlin Travel Congratulations to CAPE BRETON'S MAGAZINE on Your 50th Issue! OR TOLL FREE 1-800-565-1538 181 Charlotte Street Sydney "Wherever you're going you've come to the right place"