Cape Breton's Magazine

the wharves in North Sydney enjoying a few drinks of liquor and smoking cigarettes from St. Pierre (twenty in a package only five cents). A storm started up and my cousin wanted us to stay with him until the storm blew out but we were feeling good and wanted to get home. I had my neighbour and his wife on board and we were all drinking ex? cept my wife. She hoisted the sails and started to sail to a wharf at Whitney Pier. She was having a hard time trying to keep the boat from swamping. When she got near the wharf she had no way of stopping the boat be? cause the sails were up and she could not lower the sails and steer the boat at the same time. So she bumped the boat into the wharf and smashed the bow. Father was babysitting our chil? dren at home so now how were we going to approach him with our hard luck story. But we did, and he never fussed over it. He said the boat could be repaired but we could have all been drowned. After that we never went out in the boat without him. He took us out fishing once. When we got out to the fishing grounds and started to fish, the wind blew up. The waves got bigger and Father said, "A storm is coming up. We bet? ter go back home." He was right. My wife and little boy were with us. He said to his mother, "If the boat sinks and we get drowned, we won't know it (will we)?" My father sailed on square-riggers, schooners and steamships for thirty-three years although he couldn't swim. He was shipwrecked several times for as high as eleven days without food or water and sur? vived. Once a China ship picked up the crew of the ship he was on. When they got School Days Father had very little schooling and my mother didn't have any SO I didn't have anybody to help me. Our teacher would put us with pupils in the lower grades so that we couldn't copy.... I would like to write a few lines about my school days and about all my friends that I went to school with. I don't know if they remember me but I sure remember them and every time I go to St. Peters I manage to see the odd one. I grew up and went to school with all of George and John Kyte's and Doctor Bisset's children. My father went to school in his younger days with George and John Kyte and Doctor Bisset. Tena MacLeod was my laacher, she was awful good and kind to us. When she would go home to dinner which was just across the street, we used to move enough school desks into the clothes closets to give us room to have a square dance. Charlie MacKenzie would take his violin in school and play for us to square dance. Each one of the boys would take turns watching for the teacher to come. When we got the alarm we would hussle back with the desks and put everything in place. The last time I saw John Currie he was a bookkeeper at William Morrison's Store in St. Peters. John and I would quarrel during examination time over who would have the best marks. But he had the advantage over me, his brother and sisters were in higher grades and they would help him. I had no one. dried up, they were invited to have dinner so they sat at the table and one of the crew off the boat Father was on asked the Chinaman what kind of meat was on the platter at the table. They couldn't speak or understand English so the Chinaman pointed his finger at the platter of meat and' started to bark like a dog. My father and his shipmates knew that it was a roasted dog but the crew ate a full dinner and enjoyed every bit of it after be? ing starved out for several days. I never doubted my father's ability of handling boats, so I was never afraid to go out to sea with him. We moved from Glen? coe Street, Whitney Pier, to Havelock Street, in 1927. I got sick that year and my Doctor, A. B. Gaum, put me on benefit. He wrote to Doc? tor Wilkinson from the Lahey Clinic in Boston, U.S.A., and made an appointment; he told him that I had a cardio spasm. I packed a suitcase with things that I need? ed and got on an SMT bus that took me to the border, from there I got a Greyhound bus that took me to Boston. I went into a filling station and inquired how to get to Watertown, U.S.A. I had a stepbrother and his wife living there. The fellow said there were no buses running that late at night which was twelve o'clock midnight, but you could walk that distance, just don't speak to anyone, except a policeman may stop you to ask questions. There were DONT MAKE A MOVE WITHOUT US! ' • LOCAL • LONG DISTANCE • OVERSEAS LARGE OR SMALL - WE MOVE IT ALL _rMOFFATT '"' Moving & Storage SAFELY, EFFICIENTLY & INSURED CALL THE PROFESSIONALS • OVER 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE FREE ESTIMATES 562-0222 80 MARINE DR., SYDPORT Weekends & After Hours 564'4)963/562-1978 '', Atias VAN LINES / AGENT Breton Energy Ltd. FIREPLACE PRODUCTS 564-4949 94 Johnstone Street, SYDNEY