Page 38 - Aunt Annie MacLeod, Wreck Cove

ISSUE : Issue 48

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/6/1

mals. This was on a day when everything goes well, you're talking about. You're not talking about the cows getting loose.) No. No, I didn't have that much trouble with it. It was good fences here. And I never went to the cows at night. If they didn't come home in time, before George came home, he'd look for them. I didn't go because I was too scared, I guess, of bears and what? not. (Were you really scared of them?) Oh, well, yes, that's, I guess, one of the rea? sons I didn't go. I don't know, but I never went looking for the cows. If they didn't come home before he came home, he went looking for them. (Was there any real rea? son to be scared of the bear?) I don't think so. I never heard of any around, that time when we were there. But before that, they were plentiful. You know, when the olden people, you know. Yeah, they were very plentiful at first. But I guess they must have done away with them. (Was anyone ever harmed by a bear, that you know of?) No. My father's sister, she was going for the cows, out. There was a path, you know. Here the bear was asleep there, and so she just went around the bear, she went out for the cows, brought them home. Imagine that! I would never get that brave. (Did you ever see the bear?) No, I never. No, I never saw a bear till a few years ago there at Dan Murdock's.... Oh, we worried about the children when they were sick. Anna had trouble with her throat, off and on. Ann-Marie, when she was a baby, she was trouble with her teeth. I remember one night the doctor came--Dr. Gillis. he was in Baddeck.... He said. "There's nothing wrong"--he examined her... "Nothing wrong," he said. "If you have something that she could chew on." But I used to be so nervous about them. I used to think that everything that happened to them, they were gone. And to make matters worse, George was just like me. If something came up. he wouldn't go fishing. I remember Dan Murdock and them, they used to run on his traps. He couldn't go fishing. We were both kind of silly. Used to have the doctor when other people thought we were crazy. I guess. (Did you try any old-time cures for your children?) Oh. yes. Anna still remembers that, she says: putting baked potatoes in a stocking and putting it around her neck. And the smell of that, she was saying, it jpr OVERLOOKING SYDNEY HARBOUR mn Tel: (902) 539-6550 Toll Free: 1-800-565-9409 VistJ'otel 59 Units * Open Year Round Licensed Dining Room open 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. with Home-Styled Meals 140 Kings Road SYDNEY Nova Scotia B1P6J9 ' m~ C We invite you to stroll at your leisure through an on-site woolen mill ~ perfectly located for your picnic - overlooking the Bras d'Or Lakes! D Cape Breton Woolen Mills Mill Store and Craft Shop * OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK * 100% Wool Yarn Hand Knits Madawaska Weaving and a Variety of Maritime Crafts Cape Breton Woolen Mills Ltd. R. R. No. 1, Irish Cove, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia BOA IHO (902) 828-2256 SYDCO FUELS Serving Homes and Businesses throughout Cape Breton Furnace Oil Stove Oil Diesel Fuel Gasoline Lubricants 24-Hour Emergency Service Distributor of Petrocan 3 BURNER SYDCO rUELS m 38 Lewis Drive, Sydney River 539-6444

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