Page 4 - Hattie Carmichael of the Meadow Road

ISSUE : Issue 35

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1983/12/1

way. They lost their feathers in the run of a year, like the hens and any fowl. Those feathers had to be saved for use. They were just as good as hens' feathers. They were in mattresses and in pillows, lots of them. But I thought that was kind of cruel. I didn't like that job at all. I hated it. You'd get a barrel, and you'd throw the goose--I don't know whether they were tied or not--and you'd pluck all these feathers down in this barrel. And the goose alive! But you know, when it came time to change their feathers, they weren't so hard to pluck them, they come out very easily. (Would you take all the feathers?) Every bit of them, even the feathers in the wings. They weren't saving the feathers out of the wings and out of the tail--that wasn't put in the barrel-- but the soft feathers, yeah. They'd walk a- round naked, and pretty soon they'd be all covered with feathers all over again. It was the women did that. Poor women, many's the thing they did that they shouldn't have done. And that was one of them, I think, plucking the geese. You know, when the family grew up, they were all going away, because there was no father to provide. And as soon as ever they grew old enough, they were away to work. And my mother--I don't remember that she was much to talk about things that hap? pened, and about her family. We used to of? ten think, when the family would be away, "Isn't it strange we never hear Mother talking about John or George or this or that--what they are doing or where they are or what's going on?" We never heard mother say that. But I must think that she worried just the same. But her worry was staying by herself. She was a'wonderful wo? man. Not that she was my mother, but.... (She was left alone with how many chil? dren?) Twelve. Out the Meadow. The farm was full of everything when Father died. RITA MacNEIL "Vm Not What I Seem" The bam was full of animals, and there was a large farm to look after. How did she do it? How would a woman do it today? How did she do it then? That's what I tell you, people were so much better to help each other in those days than they are to? day. And I remember when I came from North Syd? ney, a widow with 5 children, I still re? member the difference between people then, and the difference today. When I came here, everybody was good to me. Thank God. But I was always working. And my children, all the time they were out of school, they were working with somebody. And nothing for it--nobody thinking of that. They'd give you something that they had and some? thing that you'd need--food or clothing or whatever it would be. There was nobody looking for money. r (g> y feV'' We Buy and We Sell and We're as Near as Your Telephone Sid s Used Furniture Phone 564-6123 436 Charlotte Street, Sydney We've Been Doing Business for Nearly 20 Years! * Keep Watching for our FIRST ANNUAL SALE! * George's ENTERPRISES & LAUNDROMAT BADDECK St. Peters Drug Store Ltd. Don Stone, Ph. C, Proprietor Open 6 Days a Week Mon. to Thur. open until 8 p.m. 535-2203 Fri. until 9 p.m. Sat. until 5 p.m. St Peters, N. a

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