Page 13 - Stories from the Clyburn Valley

ISSUE : Issue 49

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/8/1

feel cut off from the world?) Tom: No. Nev? er thought of it. Leona: I never knew there was a world, outside of that. Tom: You just saw that circle with a dome over it, and that was your world. Leona: But I can tell you this, that there hasn't been a week gone by since we left there that I haven't missed it. Because life was just altogether different after we moved to New Waterford. It wasn't the same at all, from the life we had lived up there. It just seems that the years I spent up there, I was always a child. And then all of a sudden, you know. When we left there, the war broke out, and you had to grow up so. I still think it's a wonderful life for young people. I think it's a wonderful way for kids to start to grow up, is in that kind of an environment. Because you don't get spoiled, that you want everything you see, you know, because--what you get, you don't see that much, so you don't, you know. And you learn to earn what you can. Tom: When I say a paradise: you had every? thing you wanted. The only thing you had to buy was coal, oil, sugar, and tea, practi? cally. And you could live without that, if you really didn't have it. Leona: (That valley) flooded every spring. It was ideal for farming conditions--floods in the spring, and when that dries out, you're a little later planting, but there's no disadvantage to that, because the ground is warm enough that the seeds germinate faster. We always had a beautiful garden. He used to start all his transplants--like Mendelson's Variety Mart Better Lwing Centre "Uaricty (h/Cart 11 sterling Rd. 849-4510 Mon.-Thurs. 9-5 Fri. 9-9 Sat. 9-5 'Better Living Centre 386 Charlotte St. 562-5533 Mon.-Thurs. 9-5 Fri. 9-9 Sat. 9-5 Authorized Dealer of Panasonic, Technics, Sanyo, Samsung, General Electric and White Westinghouse Products Also the Complete Line of Sherwin-Williams Products cauliflow? er, and everything like that--in the house in flats, and he'd transplant them. And I remember he'd bought baby turkeys one time. Baby tur keys--they • re very delicate. If you can get them to survive--maybe a week--once they reach a certain stage they're al? most impossible to kill--they're hardy then. I remember Dad taking them to bed in an old felt cap--felt hat-- taking them to bed to keep them warm- these half dozen turkeys. He had saved two that I remember, anyway. There was a hen and a torn. And the hen would go up to the edge of the woods and lay the egg, and she'd come out and she'd hoot and holler. And the tom would go up, and Dad would go up right behind the tom, and the egg would be gone--a little bit of shell left--he'd eat the egg. So Dad got kind of fed up with it after a couple of weeks, and he decided that tom, that old tom, he's going. So he had the axe--a double- bladed axe--he hit him with a stick first on the head. It never even jarred him. So he went after him with the double-bladed axe and he knocked the head off him, and the old turkey was going--still going--so hard to kill, almost impos sible. I know he used to say, "Me nursing him along- taking him to bed with me, and then he eats the eggs." HIGHLAND OFFICE PRODUCTS _--_ YOUR COMPLETE Canon BUSINESS MACHINE DEALER SALES * SERVICE * LEASING Canon PLAIN PAPER COWERS 4000 SERIES • Dual Colour • Image Editor • Semi-Automatic Document Feeder • 40 Copies a Minute • Duplexing Canon*, Halftone Reproduction [[q] • Confidential '~' Messages • 16 Shades of Grey • Speed Dialing • High Speed Transmission Canon • State-of-the-Art { Electronic Typewriter • 700-Character Correction Memory • "UNDO" Key • 8-Line Back-lit Liquid Crystal Display ' Highland Office Products Reeves Building CaSI Today For 22 Maple Street A Demonstration irsTJe"'- 539-2677 Serving All of Cs' Breton with Quaiitv Business Mactiines

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