Page 78 - Mary Sarah MacNeil Remembers Long Island

ISSUE : Issue 39

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1985/6/1

that stuff in, but it was up to us to keep them weeded, keep the bugs off of them. They'd be doing the ploughing. And one of the boys would be driving the horse, and we'd be planting the potatoes behind. Then they'd make the drills and things for the vegetables, So we were all in together at all times. The girls would go to church on a Sunday morning. The boys would take over and make the breakfast, wash the dishes, and do eve? rything like that. And if the boys would go to church, the girls would take over, split the wood, butt the wood, and do all that. Now, if the boys finished their cut? ting the wood and the kindlings and every? thing out on Saturday--we never had to do anything on Sunday--well, they'd come in. If we weren't finished scrubbing, they'd get down to scrub with us. So we all pulled together. (So there were no jobs that the boys only would do?) No, no, no. In the wintertime we were out shovelling the snow with the boys. And if the boys had something else to do, whoever was finished first would bring in the coal, the kindlings, or what? ever. Everything was equal. So my brothers could do the housework just as good as any woman. And the women, you could do just the outside. Oh, I loved splitting wood. I lived splitting wood. Splitting wood and shovelling snow are my two favourites. (The other two families on the island-- were they contributing to your household?) Oh no, no, no. They had their own places to look after. Because the Nicholsons next to us, on the Bras d'Or end, they had 8 children. So they had their own to look af? ter. Then the next family up, it was this elderly man and his sister, and they were well up in years. (In the fall, who butchered the animals?) My uncles would do it. Then they'd hunt deer. The boys, my brothers, would always have snares for rabbits. They had nets and trawls out for the fall. Then the winter? time, they used to get fresh fish off the ice. You'd have to go on your belly on the ice. You'd have to put spruce boughs on the ice and go on your stomach and watch down. You could see them down the bottom, coming to your hook. Oh, that was nice, that was fun. When we finished the supper, and we'd finish the bam work and all that, we used to go down to the shore to do the fishing. But it wasn't as good then--it'd be better in the daytime when the sun would shine down in the hole. The flatfish would come over in the sun, and you'd get them better. But we couldn't go, we had too much to do at that time. We couldn't get down till after supper, and it was get? ting so cold then. Oh really, I loved fish? ing. Well, my brother got lazy fishing them, and he'd spear them. But when you'd spear one of them, that would mess up the bottom, and you'd have to wait till your water would clear again. And he used to put bait--leftover potatoes from the meals, and put that down, that would gather the flatfish around. They loved potatoes. When Sidney's Jewellers Ltd. Fine Jewellery and Giftware Engravings on Premises 331 CHARLOTTE ST., SYDNEY / SAF-WAY / Auto Parts Ltd, '' 427 Charlotte St., SYDNEY- Phone: 539-9970 Just mention this save $200 off list prli COMPUTERS ON LTD. 150 BENTINCK ST., SYDNEY 539-9900 Save $200.00 on any Apple Computer flBopplG oompiMxzr HOURS: 7 A.M. - 11 P.M. * OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK Bonnie Jean Restaurant Midway Motors Ltd. Home-Cooked Meals with Fresh Vegetables Gift Shop Groceries and Meats On Highway 105 near the Seal Island Bridge Middle River R. R. No. 3, Baddeck Victoria Co., N. S. BOE IBO 295-2290 Local Dealer for CHRYSLER Products (78) , Aries SE 4-door Sedan is sho?

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