Cape Breton's Magazine

gould thread. And you'd steep that if the baby had a sore mouth or if you had a sore mouth or a canker in your mouth • or even take a root when you were grown up and you could chew it. Oh, it was the best thing in the world. It just seems to come up in little leaves, here and there all over the ground • three leaves on it, something like a shamrock or a clover • but they're right smooth, more in the shape of a geranium leaf. They don't grow in a bunch. They kind of run on that vine, send up a leaf. (In the woods?) Yes, and get it in the pasture. I used to get it out here on the cradle knoll, a little mound • they call it a cradle knoll. (Would you dry this as well?) I never bothered. Just take the little root and kind of tie it and put it in a glass jar. Then if you wanted it in the winter....But as a rule you could get it any time. You knew where it grew. And May snow for sore eyes. You'd see snow falling in May and I remember Mama bot? tling it. Mama used to have that water in the house all the time. (Willy Pat Fitz? gerald told me once that his mother would collect the last snow of the winter.) Well, that's May snow. (Yes, but it had to be the very last snow. And each time it snowed in May, she'd throw out the earlier water and collect the new snow • till she had the very last.) And I'll tell you something else good for tired eyes. We didn't have bags of tea then. They used to tie wet tea leaves in cheesecloth, lay down and put them on your eyelids and it would take the tiredness out. Today you could use teabags. I'll tell you what they did for catarrh. That's sinus today, but years ago it was catarrh. People here certain time of the year, lots of people are allergic to hay • well, that's kind of a hay fever. Your eyes are running and your nose is running and you're uncomfortable. You go down the beach, take a handful of salt water and sniff it up your nose • there's nothing better to clear your head than salt water out of the ocean. (Cure for toothache?) Lots of them. And the funniest one I ever heard was, if a tree was hit with lightning, get a splin? ter off of that tree and pick your teeth with that • and it's supposed to cure your toothache. Baking soda was supposed to be good. And cloves. We used to buy oil of cloves and put it on a little cloth and tuck it in the cavity. And they used to joke, they used to say, fill your mouth with cold water and sit on the stove till it boils. For warts, they used to take a little stone and every wart you had they rubbed the stone on it • then they'd make a little package of it. Oh, this was mean, but it was true. They'd rub a stone for every wart and then they'd make a little package up and throw it on the road and somebody- would pick it up and your warts would dis? appear. But some other poor devil likely would get them. They often used to write on the package, Beware of Warts • for dev? ilment. Another thing they used to do was rub meat on them • a little bit of beefsteak • and A New Record of Traditional & Original Songs Dennis & Lori Cox THE WELCOME TABLE $7.00 plus 50(' postage Write Cox, Capstick, Victoria Cty, N.S. Test drive this magnificent motoring event EUROCAR SERVICE LTD. Westmount, opposite Dobson Yacht Club 564-9721 1JS8' The CBC in Cape Breton " NATIONAUyFB3IONAIXYPre>/II'IAIXY-LOCALLY CBTT TELEVISION Channels 2,5'73,10,12, and 13 rrmrs CBI RADIO 1140 on your Dial l'f=ORMATION BnEFn-AINMB'TEha-IGHTENMEMT Cape Breton's Maga2ine/35