Page 3 - Stories From Inverness County

ISSUE : Issue 12

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1975/12/1

house. Like in them days there was no such thing as an undertaker and no such thing as having the casket ready • it would have to be built, made • and they used to put them on what they called the cold boards. They used to put them between two chairs in a room and lay the remains out on that until they'd build the casket. There'd be a sheet put over the boards. The remains would already be dressed ready to put in the casket* And we were in this house this night • playing cards • and the man was sitting, smoking away, smoking his pipe by the stove • and all of a sudden we heard this gust of wind coming and we could hear like throwing boards* And the night he died, the son went out to the bam to get the boards; but he couldn't get them in, they were too long, so he had to put the window up and throw the boards in* We were there and we turned to o&e; another and said, "That*8 the noise we heard the night we were playing cards." " ' #' ?? ''??'??"""~ Now at the lake there was • you remember Joe that we brought up • his grandfather was drowned in Lake Ainslie* He was a mail driver, and he was at a house • next door neighbors • this day, on a Sunday, visiting, and there was a man in there and he was double-sighted • and he could see the water dripping off him like this* He got up and he turned as white as a sheet and he walked out* And somebody followed him out and he said, "That fellow's going to be drowned yet* I could see the water dripping off hira in the house" • and the man sitting talking* So couple of years after that he was driving the mail and he had a young mare, and he just threw the reins on the fender and she took off with him • and she went over Hay's River bridge and kept right out at the end of Hay's River bridge out into the lake* And the mail bags were in the wagon and he had to go after her* And he swam out till he got to where she was out, and he was getting in the wagon • his coat got caught in the step of the wagon • and he went down and he was drowned* And the other fellow seen him and not a thing wrong with him • and he seen the water dripping off of him* Bessie MacLeod: When I was home about the age of 12 or 13, there was one certain bed and it was one of those felt mattresses and look, there was nobody could ever sleep in that bed • you'd be turning and twisting all night long* So at the last of it that bed was put upstairs and when visitors would corae and the house was full, then we'd sleep in it* When we moved, it was a very expensive mattress and I hated to throw it out, so we took it with us down here* The children grew up then and they were com? plaining that they couldn't sleep in the mattress* So we shifted it frora one room to another and no one would sleep in it and at last it got a tear in the felt, but I still didn't want to throw it out* So at the end of it this old fellow across the brook died, and I was over and it was Murdock Beaton who was fixing him up* But I was over and they had nothing for packing and they asked rae if I'd go home and see if I could find any cotton batting or something in the house* So I went over and I knew there was nothing there like that and I was thinking of what am I going to do. So anyways, never thinking, I spied the couch and I said, "Here she goes, boys," and I took a stack of piling from the inside of the couch where it was torn and I took that over for the packing* Well after that you could get a beautiful sleep on the mattress as you would anywhere. So there you have it, that was a forerunner* Annie MacPhee: They were saying up at John R. Beaton's in Broad Cove Marsh, that every night they'd go to sleep and the horses'd be in the barn* When they woke up in the morning, the horses' manes and tails would be all in tiny, little braids, as tight as could be. The horses would be all sweat* They were saying that the tairies would be riding the horses all night. The reasons they were braiding the hair was to raakes stirrups, for they were riding on the horses' necks. And if there was a larae horse or anything wrong with him, the fairies would never touch him* It was only the good ones* I had a mare* When she was a colt. her mother wouldn't have anything to do with her. Cape Breton's Magazine/3

Cape Breton's Magazine