Page 74 - A Visit with Frank & Margaret MacRae

ISSUE : Issue 46

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1987/8/1

there. I took a walk over to the bam. And there was a spike-horn at the apple tree. Just about dusk. I fired at him. He took one--I can see him yet--he took one leap going up that way. And down he came, like that there. And Margaret was tellin'g me after, when they heard the bullet, they almost upset the table--everybody jumping out! And some? body turned round, "Oh, Frank was only fooling." "Oh," Margaret said, "when Frank- went out, there was no fooling about him!" Hunting all day, and they didn't even get any! We'd kill a cow in December. Weather'd be getting cold. And we would hang that in the outhouse. Then we'd cut it--my father and myself, with a handsaw and an ax. Then you'd have to put salt on the bottom of the barrel. A barrel, you know, about that high. Put salt on it, then put the meat on top of that. Then cover it with more salt, another tier of meat. That's the way, now, we were doing for the winter. The pork's the same way. And if the weather was cold enough, maybe we could hang the hams of dn-mbsx 'aiz On tAa !B'd BEACH HOMES MOTEL CHALETS P. 0. Box 177. Ingonish Beach, N. S. BOC ILO (902)285-2525 les until Dawn THE WORLD OFACAPE BRETON GAELIC STORY-TELLER Joe NeU MacNeil Translated and edited by John W. Shaw and rhymes, as well as MacNeil's reminiscences about his early years in a Gaelic-speaking rural community where story-telling was, and is, a rich element of community life. McGill-Queen's University Press the pork or of the cow. We could hang them in the outhouse. Margaret: So you'd have fresh pork. Frank: Yeah. And then during winter you'd go out, and they were just as hard as that--THUMP THUMP. You'd get an ax and you'd chip some of it and cut it and take it in and fry it. And that would be like that all winter long. Margaret: Then in the morning, some morn? ing m the first of the summer, they'd line you up at the table. We'd be having breakfast, and you got your dose of sul? phur and molasses to clean your blood. And a dose of castor oil--oh, did we ever used to hate that! In our home, down home--6 of us. And some morning, that was the ritual. And when you'd stand above the stove then, you'd shake your underwear--the little sparks all over the stove from the sulphur, you know, burning. That was the ritual eve? ry spring, to clean their blood. Nobody does that any more. Nobody believes in those things. Now you have to go and pay a big price at the drugstore, $25 and $30 for a prescription. Anything else is no good. If children had high fever, they'd give them sweet spirits of nitre, and that would take their fever down just like that. Today, they wouldn't dare give that to a child. It never hurt any of the children then. So why would it be any different? Frank: You put so many drops and a little bit of sugar, give them that. Margaret: Cool them right down. Margaret: You (Frank) took pneumonia very bad" Was it you that your mother had--she was very knowledgeable--she had no school? ing. She couldn't speak a word of English, she had no schooling, she couldn't write her own name. But she was very intelligent for all that, you know, and knowledgeable READY TO SERVE ALL OF CAPE BRETON Glace Bay Book Corner 68 Main Street at Senator's Corner 849-0940 OPEN 10 A. M. till 5 P. M. (FRIDAYS till 9 P. M.) MAIL ORDERS ACCEPTED "From the Latest to the Classics • We'll Find Any Book You Want" 68 MAIN ST., GLACE BAY, N. S. BlA 4X9 Co-operative Artisanale de Cheticamp Limitee p. 0. Box 98, Cheticamp, Inverness Co., N. S. (224-2170) ICHETICAMP, N.S. • ' .' ' , . ,. ?? Produit de lame crochete. Finest hooking in virgin wool is our specialty. Acadian i Acadian Meals r'VA''icw I soupes - Mets au poisson Museum ?? ' '''' ' '' ''''''' Crepes aux pommes de terre Our shop is located in Cheticamp on the Cabot Trail OPEN MAY THROUGH OCTOBER, MONDAY THROUGH SUNDAY

Cape Breton's Magazine